


Finding Comfort in Burning

by LittleWhisperer



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Comfort/Angst, Drama & Romance, F/M, Fluff and Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-18
Updated: 2015-06-22
Packaged: 2018-02-09 08:49:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 119,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1976634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleWhisperer/pseuds/LittleWhisperer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After starting an unhealthy affair in the wake of overwhelming grief, humanity's strongest pair is sent to Sina to deal with a security risk. However, what begins as a simple mission to retrieve one rogue shifter morphs into a fight for survival against an enemy seeking to change the course of the future. Amidst espionage, betrayal, and loss, Levi and Mikasa must decide whether their growing feelings for each other can survive, or if they must put aside their own happiness for the sake of duty.<br/>Expect lots of angst/ elements of an unhealthy relationship, fluff & feels, etc. *sigh*</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. And So It Begins...

“ _The days of the Titans are numbered_.” That’s what Erwin had said to him after Levi and the waning members of his squad had returned from beyond the walls. And the Commander was right; after so many oppressive years of fighting and dying without anything to show for their sacrifices, the tide was finally turning in their favor.

 _At what a shitty cost_ , Levi thought as he walked through the castle, scanning the empty hallways as his footsteps echoed behind him in lonesome company. His dark under eye circles were worse than usual, deepened from another sleepless night. He’d lost three more of his subordinates on their latest expedition, including Eren Jaeger. The survivors were taking it hard, but no one more so than Mikasa Ackerman. The girl had been silent as the grave since their return, and while she was usually reticent, Levi had a feeling this was different. She had lived and breathed for the Jaeger boy, and now that he was gone…

He was passing through the barracks, still brooding, when a flash of silver caught his eye, gleaming through the crack in a slightly ajar door. He halted his steps, realizing that it was the door to Mikasa’s room. He had been going to look for her anyway, to see how she was coping. He thought he would find her outside somewhere, but he thanked his lucky stars he’d come this way first. His heart nearly stopped as he realized what the flash of silver had been.

As she raised the knife in front of her, clutching it tightly in both hands, her knuckles whitening on the hilt as she pointed it towards her heart, Levi burst into the room. “Ackerman!” He shouted as he barreled towards her, reaching for the knife. She gasped in shock as he ran headlong into her, tear-streaked eyes widening in her pale face. The two of them fell in a heap to the floor and Levi pried the knife from her fingers, shoving it roughly away from them as he used his bodyweight to pin her down. She continued to struggle beneath him, practically delirious, and he shook her hard, his fingers biting into her shoulders as he slammed her against the floor. “Oi, Ackerman!” he barked. “Get control of yourself!” The anger in his voice seemed to draw her attention. She blinked up at him, finally stilling.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” He snapped, his expression pulsing with anger. He had assumed that she’d be a wreck after losing Eren, and he’d been expecting to deal with some kind of breakdown, but fuck if he was going to allow her to kill herself on his watch.

She drew in a ragged breath. “I- I don’t know, Heichou.” Fresh tears pooled in her dark eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said, the tears running from the corners of her eyes down into her hairline. Shame and sadness clouded her features. “Eren…He’s…” She sobbed, her voice cracking as she tried to say his name.

Cursing, Levi drew her to him, locking his arms around her in an unwilling embrace and holding her there even as she tried to pull away. After a time she stopped resisting and gave in to the comfort he offered. She softened against him, her body curling tightly into his. Levi rocked her gently, letting her sob into his shirt. Her head was resting on his chest, and as he held her, he could detect the subtle fragrance of pine in her hair.

Mikasa let him have it- the brunt of her grief, gripping him hard enough to bruise. He winced but said nothing, letting her unleash the torrent of hurt inside. He felt the pain of losing Jaeger too, though his pain was tempered with anger at the brat for dying on them when they’d been so close to winning the damn war. _So fucking close_.

Her sobs seemed to get worse instead of better, and finally- in a last ditch effort to calm her down- Levi tilted her chin up with a gentle finger and forced her to look at him. “Ackerman.” He tried to make his voice gentle. “Ackerman, look at me.”

She did.

“It’s not your fault. Shitty things just happen; that’s life. But giving up- killing yourself- is not the answer. Think of what Eren would say.” Her tears subsided a little, her bleary eyes clearing at the mention of her precious friend.

Levi took that as a sign of encouragement. “Jaeger wouldn’t want you to give up,” he continued. “He’d want you to carry on his mission.” He brushed his thumb over her skin. “And I need you in this fight, Ackerman,” he added quietly. “I can’t do it alone.” That was the bloody truth of it, too; there was still much to be done, many fights ahead, and Mikasa was the best soldier he had. He couldn’t afford to lose her.

Her breath hitched. “You…need me.” It wasn’t quite a question, wasn’t quite a statement, but before Levi could process her words, the dark-haired girl leaned forward and pressed her lips to his.

He pulled back instantly, his eyes widening in shock. “Wait, Ackerman, that’s not what-” But his sentence was cut off as she reached her arms around his neck and crushed her lips to his again, silencing his protest.

Levi tried to extricate himself, but she was so strong ( _God_ , was she strong) and her lips felt like heaven- soft and passionate and burning, _burning_ with need. If he’d been a better man, he would’ve stopped her- would’ve at least made an effort, but when she wrapped her legs around his waist, any chivalrous thoughts he’d had turned to ashes. He groaned. _Fuck it_ , he thought, and suddenly he was holding on to her as tightly as she was holding on to him, crushing her body hard into his.

Her breathing quickened, and he could feel the heat radiating from her as he deepened the kiss, fisting a hand in her hair and angling her head beneath his. She parted her lips and all but attacked him with her tongue, but he beat hers into submission, kissing her with a ferocity that surprised him. He hadn’t realized just how badly he needed to feel someone, to touch someone, but now nothing was enough.

He needed more.

He stood up and backed them into the wall with her legs still wrapped securely around him, their lips breaking apart as they smacked into the hard surface. Levi grabbed her wrists, pinning them on either side of her head as he bent down and kissed her neck, pushing her scarf down to give him better access.

Her legs loosened from his waist and hit the floor as she gasped, squirming. “H-Heichou,” she breathed, and this time _he_ silenced _her_ as he kissed her again, his lips violently smashing against hers.

Releasing her wrists, his hands traveled down her body, tracing the outline of her hard curves with a harsh touch. He grabbed her hips roughly when he reached them and dragged them forward into his, creating a friction that made them both grit their teeth.

Driven by need, their hands were at each other’s pants, working clumsily to undo buttons as they continued to explore each other with lips and teeth and tongues. They pushed and ripped at the cumbersome fabric, letting their clothes fall to the floor.

Finally, Levi tore her panties off in a single, violent yank and then pressed against her, holding himself still at her entrance. They were both breathing hard, sensitive gooseflesh raised on their skin.

He looked at her, his cock twitching at the sight of her kiss-swollen pink lips and the needy lust shining in her dark eyes.

“Please, Heichou,” she moaned, trying to force her hips down.

He let her, and they both gasped as her body opened to accept his. Her lips were back on his in a flash, and she wrapped her legs around him once more as he shoved them back against the wall for leverage and thrust brutally inside her.

There was nothing gentle or tender about their movements: their bodies battled one another’s for dominance, taking what they needed while punishing the other with every fiber of their beings. Levi was rough, the force of his thrusts demanding and almost painful, but Mikasa matched him with a fire of her own, her nails tearing at his shirt and the skin beneath, her teeth biting his lower lip so hard she drew blood.

They were burning each other, finding comfort in the pleasure-pain of the fire they were both stoking, but it was okay because they both knew implicitly that the other could take it, that they could handle it. They were humanity’s strongest, and they clung to each other because there was no one else that could bear or understand what they needed.

Mikasa clutched at him savagely as her body pulsed in release, crying out incoherently, and he followed closely behind her, jamming her body one final time against the wall, groaning as he found his own relief.

After they took a moment to catch their breath, he helped her off of him and set her down.

Mikasa stumbled as her feet found the floor, her limbs too wobbly to stand on her own, but Levi caught her before she could fall, his arms steadying her.

While the sight of her- bare from the waist down, breathing hard, face flushed, barely able to stand- was enough to make him hot all over again, he also felt guilt smack into him like a freight train. What the hell had he been thinking, taking advantage of her like that? He had gone there to make sure she- his _subordinate_ , for fuck’s sake- was all right, not to… He cringed.

She was beautiful and strong, and to say that he’d never felt any kind of attraction to her would be a blatant lie. But she wasn’t his business, couldn’t ever _be_ his business. He exhaled. “Shit, Mikasa, I didn’t mean…I never intended-”

She placed a finger to his lips and gave him a brief smile. “Thank you, Heichou,” she said, gratitude lighting her eyes. “I needed that.”

He held her gaze, nonplussed. The Mikasa Ackerman he knew hated his guts, stared daggers at him on a daily basis. She would never freely admit to needing him in any way, let alone in an intimate way. Then again, neither would he. And yet he felt the same way she did.

“So did I,” he admitted. His gaze dropped, lingering on the bottom hem of her shirt where one end of her red scarf was dangling provocatively between her slim, bare thighs. He swallowed hard, forcing his eyes to travel back to her face. “But this can’t happen again.”

After everything that had just transpired between them, it seemed impossible to Levi that Mikasa would feel embarrassed by his perusal of her naked body, but a telltale red blushed hot on her cheeks. Lowering her eyes, she tugged her shirt down from where it had bunched at her waist, covering herself. When she looked up, her eyes were a little dazed, a little lost. “Okay,” she said. She bit her lip, a sadness settling over her features as her gaze fixed on some faraway place. “Eren is dead,” she said slowly, processing. Her words sounded hollow. “He’s really gone.” She dragged in a deep breath, sighed it out. She met his gaze, and he was relieved to see a trace of quiet determination in her dark eyes. “But I won’t give up,” she vowed. “Because you’re right, Heichou- Eren wouldn’t want me to. And because you need me in this fight.”

Levi felt a twinge of possessiveness at her words that quickly morphed into irritation, but he kept both bottled up, retaining the emotional control he had foregone only minutes earlier. He caught her staring at his lips, her own parting unconsciously, and he cursed; she certainly wasn’t making it easy to resist temptation.

Looking for a distraction- _any_ distraction- he reached down and quickly donned his pants, keeping his hands busy and _off_ of the girl in front of him. He gave her a pointed look as he hooked the last button. “Do I need to take that knife with me, or can I trust you to be responsible?”

As if he had any right to lecture her about responsibility after what he’d just done.

She glanced down at the weapon he’d wrested from her, her face reddening guiltily. “I’ll be responsible, Heichou,” she murmured. Then: “wait, you’re leaving?” She gave him a plaintive stare, her lips drawing into a small pout.

He took a shaky breath. “Mikasa, I need to go. Otherwise…” His gaze softened. “We can’t do this again; it’s a bad idea.” He reached out to give her hand a comforting squeeze, but drew back when he felt the electricity sparking between them. His pulse jumped as he heard her quick intake of breath.

He needed to get out of there- _now_. If he spent even one more second staring at her alluringly large eyes or her scantily clad body, his thin mien of composure was gong to shatter. And he already had enough regrets for one day.

Without another word he turned and strode out of her room, putting some much needed distance between them.

He had to fight the urge to go running back with every step.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first fic I've ever shared, so...yeah. Feel free to leave comments & thanks for reading! :)


	2. New Habits Are Hard to Break

_“NO!”_ Mikasa screamed as she bolted upright, her body clenching in fear as she once again saw Eren lose his footing and topple over the cliff. “ _No,_ ” she mumbled. She squeezed her eyes shut and buried her face in her hands, forcing herself to take a few calming breaths.

_It’s just a dream, just a nightmare; it isn’t real_. Only it was.

Mikasa had been there fighting alongside Eren that day, and she had watched his massive Titan form grappling with another shifter just as large, had watched both of them inch closer and closer to the cliff face. She had tried to get Eren’s attention and so had a few of her comrades, shouting until their throats were raw, but in the end it hadn’t mattered. Eren and his opponent had still taken a deadly 800-meter dive.

The image of the two Titans teetering dangerously close to the edge was imprinted in her memories, and every time Mikasa closed her eyes she relived the moment when they’d gone an inch too far. In that suspended millisecond, Eren had looked at her. His Titan had fixed her with its green stare and given one last howl of rage before disappearing over the edge.

Mikasa shuddered, running a shaking hand through her black hair. She felt awful. Her sheets lay in a sweaty tangle around her legs and her nightshirt was clinging damply to her body. Her pillow had been knocked to the floor, a casualty of her fitful sleeping.

The moon was high in the sky outside, but Mikasa got out of bed and padded to the door, her muscles aching a bit from the brutal workout she’d put herself through earlier. Pushing her body to its physical limits seemed to be the only real distraction from her constant thoughts of Eren.

Well, that and…

She felt a tingle of heat coil in her stomach as she remembered what had happened between her and Captain Levi. It seemed a little surreal, given that on a day-to-day basis they did their best to avoid each other and when they did have to interact, Mikasa was usually questioning an order or starting an argument. But when he’d held her in his arms- his _strong_ arms- and touched her face so tenderly and told her that he needed her, her preconceived feelings about him had changed. At least for a little while.

She walked to the showers, a clean towel thrown lazily over her shoulder, hoping that a bit of cold water would cool her blood and wash away the vestiges of her nightmare.

The water felt good at first, refreshing and calming as it hit her skin. Mikasa sighed, closing her eyes and letting the water run over her face and through her hair. Remembering something she’d often done as a child, she put her hands over her ears. It made the water sound like muffled rain, soothingly monotonous as it pattered against an imaginary windowpane. It was peaceful for a while until her thoughts crowded back in, and then her tranquility was replaced with grief. Tears burned down her cheeks, camouflaged by the water.

_I’m sorry, Eren. I’m sorry I didn’t protect you_. Her thoughts were full of guilt and regret and pain.

She hated that despite all of her strength she hadn’t been able to save him. There she was, the girl worth a hundred soldiers, able to take down multiple Titans without getting a scratch, and useless when it came to protecting the one thing that really mattered. After all, Eren had been the only real family she’d had left. Now she was alone.

Mikasa finished her shower quickly, rinsing off and stepping out with a few suds still gleaming on her toes, the water no longer a comfort. She toweled off, but as she reached her hips she paused, her eyes darkening as she remembered the feel of _his_ hands on her hips. He’d been rough with her, demanding, and as she traced the places his calloused fingers had dug into her skin, her breathing grew shallow. She touched her wrists, remembering how he’d held them as he pinned her to the wall, and then her fingertips unconsciously brushed across her lips, reviving other memories…

The hoot of an owl snapped her out of it.

Mikasa folded the towel around herself with a few jerky tugs, glowering. _What is wrong with me?!_

She stalked angrily from the room, trying to shake the torrid thoughts of Captain Levi. She didn’t even like him- or at least, she didn’t like him much. There was no logical reason she should feel any desire for him. He was cold and blunt and harsh and closed-off, the opposite of Eren in every way. And yet being with him was the only time she’d felt human since Eren had died. The aggression they’d shared- the _lust_ \- had made her feel alive. And she wanted to feel that way again.

As much as Mikasa Ackerman hated the thought of needing someone, she couldn’t deny that she did.

She just had to make him want her again.

 

**

The soft knock on his door jarred him awake. He hadn’t been sleeping, but he’d been dozing off, sitting in the lone chair in his room. Now his eyes locked onto the wooden door, his sleepiness deserting him. It was late- way past any semblance of a respectable time for someone to be bothering him- and he had a feeling he knew who it was.

Standing, he walked to the door, hesitating for a split second before turning the knob.

_Don’t open it_ , came the nagging voice of reason in his head. _Your life is complicated enough as it is. Just sit back down and ignore her. Don’t be stupid._

He opened the door.

Mikasa Ackerman stood in the doorway, large dark eyes full of need. She was wearing a loose cotton nightgown and her omnipresent red scarf. Her feet were bare and the ends of her hair looked damp.

“Can I come in?” She asked.

Thoughts of their earlier tryst came to mind. It had been almost a week since they’d been with each other, though heavens knew she’d been in his dreams every night since. Seeing her standing there now was pure torture.

A muscle clenched in his jaw. “No, Ackerman, you can’t come in,” he stated bluntly. He kept his expression cool as he looked at her. “I know why you’re here, and the answer is no. I told you: that can’t happen again.”

He made to shut the door but she blocked it with her foot and took a step towards him, her fingers curling around the doorknob. “Please don’t send me away,” she murmured. She took a step nearer to him. “I’m afraid of what will happen if I’m alone.”

Her hands went numbly to her scarf, tugging at the frayed ends. “I’ve tried to be strong, but knowing that Eren is gone…” Her voice cracked as she spoke his name. “I feel so empty.” The word rang hollow, as dead on her lips as it was in her heart. She peered at him through her lashes. “If you send me away, I might do something stupid.”

She was close enough that he could feel the heat of her body, close enough to feel the enticing warmth of her. But he held firm despite the fact that he wanted to rip her damn scarf off and take her right then and there. Because he wasn’t what she really needed, even though a part of him wished he were.

He sighed. “Then leave your weapons- and anything else you could use to hurt yourself with- here and go back to your room. You are not going to play the guilt card to win my pity.” His gaze softened slightly. “You can’t always get what you want, Mikasa.”

Her eyes blazed at that- maybe taking it as a challenge- and she closed the gap between them, pressing up against him. She leaned in close, her lips hovering just above his, teasing him with their soft touch with every word she uttered. “What about what you want, Heichou?” Her arms snaked around his neck and she rubbed her hips against his, eliciting a low growl of frustration. “Are you sure I can’t stay?” She purred, rubbing against him with a little more pressure. Small, needy, kitten sounds escaped her throat.

Levi gripped her hips firmly in his hands and held her still, his fingers digging into her. “Cut it out, Ackerman.” His tone was one of fracturing ice- cold but strained.

But she wasn’t so easily deterred. She arched her back into him, letting him fill his hands with the flare of her hips, and she planted a few light nibbles along his jaw and lower lip. “Please, Heichou, just one more time?” She made a little sound of aggravation that vibrated from her lips to his. “I need you,” she whispered, pleading.

Levi pressed his burning forehead to hers, shutting his eyes. “You’re only doing this because of Jaeger,” he said hoarsely. “And being here won’t bring him back. Or help you heal from his loss.”

Her body shook at his words, emotion ripping through her in tremors. Without saying anything she kissed him, and he could taste her salty tears as they mingled in the space where their lips met.

Maybe it was her pain, or her obvious need, or the fact that they were both aroused and practically shaking with desire- or maybe it was just the fact that he’d bought his place in hell long ago. Levi didn’t really care. He knew she was using him, knew that under any other circumstance she would be only too happy to keep her distance, but he was much too jaded a person for that to deter him. The only thing that mattered was that once again she’d broken down his resistance. She’d awakened the hunger he tried to keep in check.

She’d pushed him too far.

With a free hand, he slammed the door shut behind them and pressed her flush against his body, his arms chaining her to him. He didn’t fail to notice the small sound of triumph she made as he kissed her back with unrestrained ardor, unleashing a week’s worth of pent-up fire. Their teeth clashed, their tongues danced, and he felt the unmistakeable heat rising between them.

He hiked up the hem of her nightgown, groping at the smooth skin beneath, groaning when he discovered she wasn’t wearing anything under the flimsy garment. His fingers searched until they found her softest skin and then he petted her roughly, his long digits teasing her.

Mikasa gasped hotly against his mouth, her eyes widening, her cheeks flushing darkly. She was already damp with want.

He removed his fingers abruptly, enjoying her moan of disappointment, then wrapped an arm around her thighs and picked her up, carrying her swiftly to his bed and dropping her down on it irreverently. He climbed in between her legs, grinding against her as their lips locked once more. Her nightgown had ridden up past her hips, and her bare skin felt scalding against the thin material of his pants.

She slid her hands under his shirt, her palms smoothing over the muscles of his chest. Not content with that, she slid her hands out and deftly undid the row of buttons. He helped her when she finished with the buttons, shrugging his shirt off and tossing it off of the bed. Her hands went back to his chest, tracing his muscles, her fingernails scratching his skin in erotic friction, raising red lines as her hands traveled lower.

_Your turn_ , he thought darkly. He rolled his hips into her in a way he knew she’d like, catching her earlobe in his teeth as he did so.

Mikasa paused in her ministrations, her fingers curling into the skin of his abdomen, pinching. She gasped.

Feeling a villainous sense of satisfaction, he slid his hands up inside her nightgown, his calloused fingers dragging across her skin. She squirmed when he reached her firm breasts, moaned and arched into him when he brushed his rough thumbs across her sensitive nipples. She crushed herself against him, kissing him harshly as her hands found the zipper of his pants.

His own hands wormed their way back down her torso and then out of her nightgown. He reached for her scarf, starting to tug it from her neck.

Like iron vices, her hands clamped down around his wrists, stopping him.

He looked down at her, two fistfuls of red scarf still clutched in his hands. “Let go,” he ordered.

She shook her head, the passion in her eyes cooling to fear. “No,” she said, her tone one of stubborn resistance.

Sighing, Levi let the worn fabric slip through his fingers, and Mikasa instantly released her death grip on his wrists, the fear in her eyes fading.

He propped himself up, his hands on either side of her shoulders. His hooded eyes held hers as he gently brushed a stray piece of hair from her face. “You need to let go, Mikasa,” he said, not unkindly.

What he was really saying was: you need to let _him_ go.

Her lower lip began to tremble and he bent down and caught it between his teeth. He kissed it, kissed her upper lip, kissed her full on the mouth, trying to impart some of his strength to her. She softened once more beneath him, her pink lips parting.

But he drew back. “You need to let go,” he repeated.

She looked up at him, her dark eyes full of conflict.

It struck him then that he wanted her to let go of Eren because he wanted her to heal, to be happy. He cared about her, more than just as a subordinate. He didn’t want another girl in his bed; he wanted Mikasa Ackerman- the woman worth a hundred soldiers, the girl who had a quiet strength that matched his own. And he realized that he wanted her to feel the same about him, realized also that she never would. She was using him for comfort, as a way to fill the emptiness that Jaeger had left behind.

And he could learn to accept that.

But fuck if he was going to let the memory of the Titan brat get between them _now_.

Mikasa stared up at him, her brows knitting together at his silence. “Heichou? We can still-”

He held his ground. “No. Either the scarf comes off, or you leave. I’m not compromising with you on this.” _You’re not the only one who can be stubborn, brat_.

She tried to kiss him, tried to use her hands and her body to make him change his mind, but he stayed completely still, unresponsive, empowered by the sudden power shift.

She bit her lip, frowning up at him in troubled indecision. Finally, she reached up her hands, and for a second he thought she was going to push him away. But instead, her hands settled on her scarf.

Slowly, _slowly_ , she unwound it from her neck and pulled it off. She let the red fabric fall off the bed, watching as it disappeared to the floor. It fluttered down like a sash of blood and pooled on the ground.

“There,” she said. She fixed him with an impatient, angry stare. “Better?”

“Much,” he said darkly as his hand moved downwards and his thumb found her sensitive bundle of nerves. She gasped, quivering, and the scarf was forgotten as she pressed her lips to his. He reached down and caught the hem of her nightgown, pushing it up. She helped him, wiggling out of it, and then they were pressed together, skin to skin. Both of them were radiating heat.

Levi let his lips move to her neck, planting wet kisses as his mouth roamed lower and lower still. Mikasa dug her nails into his shoulders, drawing a hiss of pain from him; his exhale raised goosebumps in the dip of her hipbones. He looked up at her and she grabbed at his hair, yanking his head back up towards hers and finding his mouth with her burning lips. Her free hand worked at his pants until he sprang free and then she positioned him at her entrance, pressing her hips down. Levi took her lead and guided himself forward, thrusting deeply into her, their bodies coming together forcefully. He heard her gasp against his neck, and he took a moment to enjoy the sensation of her muscles squeezing him as he settled inside of her, the way her body felt wrapped tightly around his. He knew he was the worst kind of scum for letting her use him- for using her- but at that moment he didn’t give a single shit. She was liquid fire in his arms and he wanted to burn.

In a reversal of dominance, Mikasa wrapped her limbs around him and flipped them over so that she was on top. She pressed him down into the mattress, her hands flat against his chest, and she closed her eyes, her mouth opening and closing convulsively as she rocked against him. His hands came up to grip her thighs as their movements quickened, his palms spreading possessively over her skin. She slowly tilted her head back, exposing her neck to him.

It was the first time he’d ever actually seen her neck- her scarf was such a permanent fixture that the red fabric had almost become a part of her. But now her neck was bare- naked beneath his gaze and haloed in moonlight. It was long and slender, and right now there were beads of sweat gathering in the hollow of it. He could see her pulse thrashing wildly at its base. The desire to caress that usually hidden pale flesh was overwhelming, so he shifted, sitting up so that he could reach it with his lips. He ran his teeth across the delicate skin, making Mikasa shiver. She wrapped her legs tighter around him, and he could feel her body beginning to quicken, humming around him as she neared her limit. His own release was staggering, and he crushed her body against him as it burned through him, biting down less gently than he should over the pulse in her neck.

Mikasa was almost there, so Levi used his thumb to send her over the edge. She would have screamed as she shattered around him but he caught the sound in a violent kiss, his lips bruising hers.

It took a long time for their heart rates to slow down, a longer time still for the room to stop spinning around them. They were both breathing hard, a fine sheen of sweat coating their muscular bodies. Their limbs were still entwined, their breath mingling as they rested their foreheads against one another. Finally, they pulled away and collapsed onto the bed, spent.

They lay side by side as the minutes dragged on and the sky lightened to a hazy predawn.

After a time, Mikasa turned towards him, her dark eyes searching his. “Is it okay if I stay, Heichou?” She asked. There was no expectation in her voice, only hesitant questioning.

A saint couldn’t have refused the damn girl. “You can stay,” he answered in a low voice, ignoring the obvious reasons he should have said no. He’d already crossed every line there was (twice)- more like trampled them into the fucking dirt, actually- so what did it matter if he allowed himself a moment of happiness? Who would judge him anyway?

He knew the answer to that, though: he already hated himself for taking advantage of her again, even though she’d all but begged for it. He could have stopped her, _should_ have stopped her. He just hadn’t really wanted to.

Mikasa nodded and reached an arm over the side of the bed, rescuing her scarf from the floor. Giving a sigh of contentment, she wrapped it around her shoulders and curled up under the covers, facing away from him.

Levi watched her, saying nothing. She was inches from him but miles away, and there was nothing he could do to change that.

_Eren will always be more important to her than you are. He’s dead and he’ll still always be more important_.

Levi tried to ignore the smug voice in his head, tried to push it away, but it refused to fade.

Because in the end, he knew it was the bitter truth.

 


	3. Surprises

The sky was an ominous shade of grey. The sun was completely obscured by its charcoal palette, and dark, brooding clouds hung heavy as far as the eye could see, looming over the earth like a foreboding shadow. Leaves of all colors blew back as a crisp wind whistled by, baring their undersides to the dark sky. The air had a bite to it, too, a cold harbinger of the coming storm.

Mikasa drew her scarf tighter around her neck, fighting off a sudden chill. She didn't like storms- their unpredictability made her uneasy. Eren had never seemed to mind them, had always regarded them with a kind of childlike wonder, but Mikasa was more practical. Storms were meant to be avoided, not enjoyed.

She quickened her pace as she crossed the grounds, heading for the castle with a purposeful stride. It was only early afternoon, but it already looked like nighttime. If she was going to act, it had to be soon.

_Their chances are slim enough as it is_.

She pushed the thought away as the first few drops of rain fell from the sky. Having a defeatist attitude would serve no one. Right now, what she needed to do was to take action. And in order to do _that_ , she needed the Captain.

She found him by the stables trying to calm one of the horses. The mare was pawing the ground, the whites of her eyes showing as she snorted in fear. Her ears lay flat against her head. To Mikasa, it seemed that Levi's steadying hands were the only things keeping her from rearing.

“Heichou!” She called when she was close enough to get his attention without startling the horse.

He turned at the sound of her voice, his omnipresent frown deepening as she ran over to him. He kept one hand on the horse’s forelock and the other gripped on her reins. “What is it?”

Mikasa felt a buzz of irritation at his clipped tone, not that it was different from how he usually addressed her. Still, she was secretly infuriated by the fact that his attitude towards her hadn’t changed, despite the fact that they’d been sleeping together for two weeks.

_He could at least pretend I was worth more than dirt on his shoe,_ she thought sourly. Her expression hardened. “I’d like permission to go look for Connie and Sasha. They were supposed to be back last night and they still haven’t returned. If they’re still out there when this storm hits…” She trailed off.

“I know.” Levi looked up at the swirling storm clouds, his brows knitting together. “But this shitty weather…if it gets as bad as it looks, a rescue attempt will be impossible. Maybe even perilous.”

Mikasa crossed her arms over her chest, her stance becoming confrontational. She glared at him. “We can’t just leave them out there. They’re our comrades and-”

“Oi." He cut her off. "Cool down, Ackerman; I realize that.” He sighed, giving her a disparaging look. “You’re always so quick to assume things. Tell me: what do you think I’m doing out here?” He raised an eyebrow, demanding an answer.

Mikasa blinked. “I…” She had no idea.

“I’m making sure all the horses are secure before I leave to find my missing subordinates. Do you honestly think I’d leave them out there- stranded, wounded, or worse?” He clicked his tongue at her. “Tch. You’re an idiot, Ackerman.”

Mikasa noticed then that he was wearing his gear- straps and buckles all in place. She looked down at her feet, her face reddening in shame. That was _exactly_ what she had assumed. And her assumption had been wrong.

“I’m sorry,” she said, genuinely meaning it. But her single-mindedness wouldn't let her drop the issue. She forced her chin up and looked him in the eye. “Let me go with you.”

It came out as more of an order than a request, and she hurried on when she saw him start to scowl. “You might need my help," she reasoned. "Especially if Connie or Sasha is hurt.”

He stared at her in silence for a protracted moment, weighing her suggestion as a soft drizzle began to fall. “Alright,” he answered finally. “Gear up and meet me back here in five minutes.”

Mikasa gave a curt nod and turned on her heel, jogging off towards the castle as the soft drizzle turned to a steady rain.

 

**

She donned her gear quickly and threw on her jacket and cape, her fingers deftly doing up the buckles and cinches. In addition to her 3DMG blades, she grabbed the dagger she had stashed under her bed and secured it in her boot- just in case. _  
_

She got up to leave but paused at the door, turning back. She stood there silently for a moment and then she reached up and unwound her scarf, letting it slip from her neck. Folding it carefully, she placed it on her pillow.

_You need to let go_.

Levi’s words echoed in her head as she left her room and her scarf behind, returning unbidden to her.  _Let go, let go._

He was right; as painful as it was to accept, she _did_ need to let him go. Right now, she needed to focus all her energy on finding her missing comrades, not on mourning Eren _._

She took off running before she could change her mind.

 

**

He’d been right about the weather being perilous.

The downpour was so bad that Mikasa could barely see five feet in front of her. The rain beat down on her, blurring her vision to the point of blindness. Leaves and rain blew in her face constantly, and the cold, wet wind kept tugging her off course. She spent more time readjusting her position than covering ground. Her lips pressed into a thin line as she once again thought about how much she hated storms.

Just as she managed to regain control, a particularly violent gale hit her and she was pulled sharply to the left by its current. She shielded her eyes and narrowly avoided smacking into a tree. Levi shouted something from somewhere above her, but the words were completely drowned out by the storm.

_I can’t hear, I can’t see, and I can’t steer_. A shiver of anxiety shot up her spine. _I’m dead in the air_.

Before she had a chance to absorb the direness of her situation, she was hit with a sudden, stinging blow from behind that sent her reeling. She yelped in surprise and whipped around, struggling to regain her balance and equilibrium.

_A Titan!_ Her shock swiftly turned to horror. _It has to be a 14-meter at least, and there’s no way I can take it out when I can barely control my gear._

One of its massive hands reached for her and she dodged out of the way at the last second, but as it shot out its other hand a strong gust of wind pulled her back into its range and its fingers smacked against her legs. It latched on, wrapping its meaty fist around her shins and holding her upside down.

Thinking fast, Mikasa used her core strength to pull her upper body parallel with its hand. She unsheathed her blades and scissored them against its knuckles, slicing deep enough to sever bone. The Titan howled in pain, throwing its head back as it bellowed. Its grip slackened just enough so that Mikasa managed to wiggle free, but as she plunged downward she failed to notice the jutting tree limb until it was too late. She swerved to the side, but her reaction time wasn’t fast enough and she grimaced as her left side made impact. Bark splintered against her clothes and exposed skin.

_Down, down, down_ she went, her panic rising as the ground drew closer with every second. She grabbed in vain at a slender branch but it broke beneath her weight and she lurched further downwards, crashing into a gnarled lower limb. It knocked the wind out of her but at least it stopped her fall. She stood shakily on the branch, sputtering as she tried to catch her breath.

And the Titan was right there, lunging for her.

A sudden whirlwind of green surged behind it, slicing viciously into its nape, and Mikasa watched as the Titan pitched forward, its gigantic form crashing to the ground instead of crashing into her. 

Levi landed beside her on the branch and sheathed his blades. “Are you hurt?” He gave her a hurried appraisal, checking for signs of injury. He grimaced as he noticed her ripped clothing and the scratches beneath. "Shit," he cursed.

She shook her head. “They're not deep. I’m okay.” Her mind was still spinning from the shock of it all. _How did he manage to take down a Titan in this weather? I couldn't even control my gear._ She couldn't help but be more than a little impressed.

Levi gave her a terse nod, water dripping from his face. “Good.” He moved closer, struggling to be heard over the rain and wind. “We have to find shelter. There’s no point in trying to find them in this shit.”

Mikasa was about to answer him when she heard a loud creaking sound from above her, followed by a sick splintering crack. She looked up as a huge tree limb snapped clean off directly above their heads and tumbled towards them. Levi’s eyes widened and he pushed her back against the tree trunk, shielding her with his body. The limb rattled the branch they were standing on as it toppled by, taking off a good foot of it as it continued its descent.

Mikasa had instinctively put her hands up in front of her when Levi had jumped towards her, and now she could feel his heart beating steadily beneath her palm. As he stepped away, her hand lingered on his chest. She snatched it back as if burned when she realized it, mortified.

But Levi wasn’t paying any attention. He cursed, wiping the water from his eyes. “We’re dead in the air if we stay out here,” he said, voicing her earlier concern. “We need to get out of this. _Now_.” He readjusted one of the buckles that had come loose around his hips. “I know somewhere close by we can go.” He grabbed her arm. “Don’t do anything stupid, Ackerman. Stay close and follow my lead.”

For once, Mikasa felt no reason to argue with him.

 

**

The cave was a sorry excuse for a shelter of any kind- barely ten feet deep and not even as tall- but it was the best available refuge under the circumstances.

And most importantly, it was safe from the wind and rain.

Mikasa unhooked her gear and stumbled towards the back of the cave, getting as far away from the storm outside as possible in the limited space. She felt a moment of relief before the cold hit her. She was drenched; every article of clothing was soaked through and her hair was clinging wetly to her face. Even her eyelashes were dripping with water. And the chill of it all was numbing, settling deep in her bones. She huddled down, wrapping her arms around herself as her teeth chattered together.

She looked up at the Captain. Levi was standing near the mouth of the cave. He had taken off his gear and cape and was wringing a river of water out of the mud-streaked green cloth, twisting it in his hands. Finally he gave up and threw it in the corner on top of his gear. “Disgusting,” he muttered.

The cold seemed to hit him too, because a second later he was peeling off his wet clothes, stripping down to his underwear. He ran a hand through his hair, flicking the water out of it. Mikasa noticed a purpling bruise on his right ribcage and wondered how many bruises she’d have come morning.

_I’d have more if it weren’t for him._ She wondered if Levi had gotten injured because he’d been protecting her.

She wondered why he'd protected her at all.

And yet it wasn't the first time he'd done it _._ He'd protected her from the Female Titan, all those months ago, and he'd rescued Eren, pried him right from Annie's massive jaws. 

_Eren..._

A violent shiver coursed through her, snapping her back to reality, and Mikasa knew she should act- that she should get the wet clothes off of her body. But she couldn’t get her hands to move. In fact, she realized in fear, she couldn’t move much of anything. It was like the cold had frozen her entire body.

Only she wasn’t still. She was shaking.

“Mikasa.” Levi was crouching down in front of her, his brow furrowed in concern. He touched her forehead, then dropped his hand, cursing. “You’re burning up. And you’re soaking wet. You need to get out of these clothes.”

He unfastened her cape and removed it from her shoulders, then pulled her up to standing. When she did nothing, his fingers moved to the buttons of her shirt, undoing them with ease.

But when he reached the last button she stopped him, her grip weak on his hands.

He paused, looking up at her questioningly, but when he saw the embarrassment in her eyes his worry quickly morphed to exasperation. He snorted. “For fuck’s sake, Ackerman, I’ve seen every inch of you there is to see. Quit being prudish.” He exhaled, his voice softening. “Your stubbornness is going to be the death of you, do you know that?”

Her blue lips pulled up in a pale smile. “Maybe,” she said in a thin voice. “But not today.” She let go of his hands and didn’t hinder him as he removed her shirt. As he slipped her arms out of the sleeves she stumbled, a little unsteady on her feet. Levi's arm snaked around her, anchoring her against him. "I've got you," he said gently. "Just lean on me."

She did, using him for support as she pulled her arms free. She wobbled a little as he bent down to unlace her boots, and she put her hands on his shoulders to keep her balance as he slowly tugged her pants down her legs, the wet material clinging to her skin in resistance every inch of the way. Her bra was only a little damp- shielded from the rain by the other layers of clothing, so she left it on, along with her underwear.

Levi kept his eyes averted the entire time, even though his earlier statement was true enough: they’d both already seen every inch of each other- multiple times.

Mikasa found herself strangely touched by his respect for her unspoken request, and more than a little surprised. He didn’t seem the type to cater to anyone’s wishes, especially a subordinate’s.

His unexpected gentleness loosed a flurry of butterflies in her stomach that had nothing to do with her fever.

_Is that why I didn't want him to undress me? Because I felt...shy?_ She frowned; she'd never felt that way around him before.

She peeked over at him through her lashes while he was folding their clothing, taking advantage of his momentarily diverted attention. Her gaze traveled up his body, taking in the cut lines of his muscles, his trim physique, the hard set of his jaw, the omnipresent dark circles that framed a pair of unwavering eyes.

Rough- that's how she would describe him, and how she would describe the way they were with each other. They'd been together physically- yes- but they'd never been intimate. She felt more naked now than she had any of the times she'd shared his bed, and suddenly she realized her feelings about the Captain were not as simple as they once had been, not as easy to compartmentalize.

Levi sat down heavily against the back wall of the cave and beckoned her over when he realized she was still standing where he'd left her. He scowled when she hesitated. “Get over here, Ackerman," he said tiredly. "That’s an order.”

Mikasa moved towards him on leaden feet and all but collapsed in front of him, but his arms shot out and caught her before she could hit the ground. "Easy," he cautioned as he steadied her. He helped her sit and then turned her around so her back was to him. He drew her against his chest, his knees coming up on either side of her. She felt him wince a little as she settled against him and she tried to move but he held her still. She was too weak to protest.

Mikasa closed her eyes. Even though they were both wet and cold, his skin felt hot against hers. She gave a rattling exhale as his hands began to rub back and forth on her upper arms, trying to warm her up.

“You’re freezing,” he murmured. “And trembling.”

“That’s not from the cold,” she mumbled quietly. “I was scared.” She had no idea what prompted her to say it, and it didn’t even bother her that she had. _The fever must be weakening my sense of pride._

His hands stilled on her arms. “You- _scared_?” He said softly. “Of what?”

“Of not being in control,” she admitted. “The storm…I couldn’t beat it.” It had made her feel small, insignificant, _helpless_. Not feelings she was accustomed to.

“Ah.” She felt him sigh against her hair as his hands resumed their motion on her arms. “It’s ironic, in a way. No matter how strong we are or how many enemies and Titans we face, nature will always be stronger. It’s a harsh reality of this world, even for people like us.”

“People like us?”

“Survivors.”

She heard the burden behind the word, and wondered- not for the first time- just how much the Captain had endured in his life, how many people he’d survived, how many friends he’d lost on his way to becoming humanity’s strongest. The thought made her sad.

_No wonder he always looks so solemn. He’s alone- more alone than I’ve ever been._

And yet in all the times she’d clung to him for comfort, she’d never once given any thought to his feelings. She’d been too wrapped up in her own grief. Her selfishness made her grimace.

_I should say something to him now- tell him that he could lean on me if he needed to, that I could comfort him._ She at least owed him that.

But the words were a jumble in her head, disconnected fragments that she wanted to put into coherent thoughts but couldn’t.

So she stayed silent.

Minutes passed, the deluge continuing outside with no sign of letting up. Mikasa began to test her strength, flexing and stretching her hands.

“Any better?”

She nodded. “A little.”

Levi was quiet for a time, and Mikasa felt herself starting to relax into him, her body softening into his. She could feel his heartbeat again, a steady comfort against her back. She began to warm up slightly as she watched the rain fall in endless monotony outside the mouth of the cave.

She had no idea how much time had passed when his quiet voice broke the stillness.

“You’re not wearing your scarf.”

Even in her fever-addled state, Mikasa noticed that he was careful to keep the inflection out of that statement.

“No. I left it behind.”

“Why?”

She hesitated. What could she say? _She_ couldn’t even sort out her complicated emotions, let alone articulate them enough to share them with him.

Finally she settled on the only thing that made sense. “It was a burden, and I have enough of those to live with without wearing one around my neck.”

He seemed to accept that, because he didn’t push her for any further answer. Instead, he wrapped his arms around her and drew her closer to him, cradling her against him.

“I’m sorry about Eren," he murmured. “To lose someone you care for so deeply…I wish it was a pain you didn’t have to know.” He paused, and Mikasa noticed idly that his hands were cupping hers, his thumbs brushing gently across her knuckles. “But I understand, Mikasa- truly. And if you ever need someone to talk to, you can talk to me, if you’d like.”

Mikasa drew in a breath of surprise. His words were so unexpected that they caught her off guard, and she felt tears welling in her eyes at the raw sincerity and understanding in his voice. _He cares,_ she realized with a pang. _Much more deeply than he lets on_. She’d always interpreted his reticence as coldness, but maybe it wasn’t. Maybe his aloofness was just a way to stem the pain he felt. Maybe she’d been too quick to judge.

It wouldn’t be the first time she’d been wrong about him.

_Why didn’t I ever notice it before?_ But she knew why: aside from Eren, she’d never looked too closely at anyone else, had never bothered to make an effort.

She blinked the tears away, composing herself. “Thank you…Levi,” she whispered, somehow managing to keep the tremor out of her voice. She felt him go still against her, his thumbs pausing on her knuckles. Mikasa noticed but didn’t read too much into his reaction. It was suddenly very hard to keep her eyes open.

She swallowed, trying to stay awake long enough to say one more thing as the heavy weight of sleep pressed down on her. “I’m sorry,” she said. “For treating you so badly.”

His arms tightened around her. “You don’t owe me an apology, Mikasa.” He brought his lips close to her ear. “Now get some sleep,” he breathed.

Mikasa closed her eyes and curled into him.

She fell asleep in the safe circle of his arms.

 

**

“Hey! Over here!”

Levi’s eyes darted to the right, conducting a quick visual search of the area to pinpoint the voice.

It didn’t take long.

_There._

Motioning for Mikasa to follow him, he adjusted his cables and gave himself a boost of gas, flying towards the two waterlogged soldiers stranded high in a tree. Connie and Sasha were waving their arms overhead to get their attention, and Sasha was practically jumping up and down to ensure they’d be spotted.

As if he could possibly have missed them. They looked like a pair of flailing monkeys.

He landed deftly on the branch adjacent them, Mikasa joining him only seconds later. She said nothing, and he didn’t glance her way. If he did, memories of last night would stir, and now was _not_ the time to reminisce.

Connie breathed an audible sigh of relief. “We are so happy to see you!” He exclaimed. “I thought for sure no one would come looking for us, especially because of the storm.” He gestured at his clothes. “We got soaked through,” he said, tugging at the sodden fabric of his shirt. “I don’t think this stuff is ever gonna dry.”

Levi felt little sympathy for him. “You two do look a bit like drowned rats,” he said mordantly. “And thanks to you, so do we.” He narrowed his eyes. “What are you doing out here? You were supposed to do a simple reconnaissance and report back. Please enlighten me as to how you managed to fuck that up.”

Sasha’s face reddened at his chastising tone. “We’re sorry, Heichou,” she blurted out. “We were following your orders but we ran into a group of variants- three big ones. We thought we could probably take them out but they were moving through the forest pretty fast and we lost them and by the time we found them again…” She shot a nervous glance at Connie. “Well, we ran out of gas.”

“Yeah. We did get two of the variants, though,” Connie added, shrugging apologetically. He looked down at his feet when he realized neither of them was amused. “Sorry. We should have used better judgment,” he mumbled. He gave them both a feeble smile of gratitude. “Thanks for coming to get us,” he added.

Sasha nodded eagerly.

Levi scowled, his relief at finding them alive quickly giving way to irritation. _There are your everyday idiots and then there are these two._ “Huh. It’s good to know we risked our lives because of your stupidity.” He made no effort to keep the acerbity from his voice.

They withered at the bite in his tone and he sighed, his anger relenting. “At least it didn’t get you killed.” He frowned, thinking. “We’ll have to double up since you’re both grounded. Connie- you’ll come with me. Sasha- with Ackerman.”

He turned to Mikasa, lowering his voice. “Can you handle a passenger?”

Her fever had broken in the morning, but he wasn’t sure if she had enough of her strength back for the job ahead. He hoped that she did, because there was no way he could bring both of them back by himself. And yet it seemed nigh impossible that she could have recovered so quickly from the cold-induced near paralysis she’d been in only hours ago.

Unbidden, he remembered how it had felt to hold her as she’d slept, and the unexpected conversation before. The way she had talked to him… It was the first time they'd actually _had_ a conversation, he realized in growing astonishment.

_Well, the first time we've ever had a_ civil _conversation_ , he amended wryly.

And when she had called him Levi… God, what he wouldn't give to hear his name on her lips again. It was pitifully pathetic, but that didn't change the fact that it was true.

_She's all I fucking think about anymore._

That was true too.

In some ways, he was grateful to the damn brats for getting stuck out in the storm. If they had returned on schedule, he would never have gotten to see her softer side. And she would probably never have seen his.

Mikasa nodded, drawing him back to the present. There was no sign of weakness in her dark eyes. “I’ll be fine, Heichou,” she reassured him before turning her attention to Sasha.

Connie looked uncomfortable at best as Levi readjusted his gear to accommodate both of them, fidgeting awkwardly until Levi told him to knock it off. After that he was still as a statue.

The trip back was strenuous, and Levi felt the burden of toting Connie with every pull and drag of his gear. The handling was piss poor compared to normal- and slower. The only spot of good news was that the storm had passed. The sky was overcast but clear.

He glanced over his shoulder at Mikasa now and again, but every time he did, all he saw was her rigid determination. _The girl is a fucking machine_. He couldn’t help but admire her resilience.

Finally the castle came into view, the sea of trees thinning as they at last reached the edge of the forest. It seemed like days had passed instead of hours since they'd found Connie and Sasha.

_Landing never felt so good_ , Levi thought in relief when his feet touched the earth a few minutes later. Connie hastily untangled himself and stepped away, running over to help Sasha and Mikasa after uttering a tentative thank you.

Levi watched Sasha give Mikasa a quick hug, gushing thanks for saving her. Mikasa returned her embrace weakly, then said something much too softly for Levi to hear. The other girl nodded hastily and she and Connie both helped Mikasa out of her gear.

Even from a few feet away, Levi could see Mikasa's exhaustion. He silently cursed his two subordinates as he made his way over to them.

“Springer, Braus: go tell the others that we’re back, then go clean our gear.” He infused his voice with a note of threat. “And when I come check it, it had better be spotless.”

They hurried away after giving him a quick salute.

He turned to Mikasa, his tone softening. “You should go to medical. I know your fever’s gone, but you look about ready to collapse.”

“I’m not the only one,” she replied. She stepped closer, gently brushing her fingers against his side. “You have a bruised rib, maybe two. I noticed last night when…when you were holding me.” A faint blush warmed her cheeks.

The tempting pink made his pulse quicken. He took a breath, instantly feeling the pain in his side that he hadn’t noticed before. “Alright. Let’s go together, then.”

Her dark eyes were warm as they held his. "Okay, Heichou," she said obligingly. She reached for his hand. "We'll go together."

“Levi,” a voice called from behind them.

Mikasa jumped away from him and Levi turned, watching as the imposing figure of the Commander walked over to them.

“Erwin?” He questioned in surprised greeting. His superior was the last person he'd been expecting to see.

The Commander gave him a bemused once-over. “You’ve looked better.”

Levi stared pointedly at the stub that was left of Erwin's right arm. “So have you,” he commented dryly. “When did you get back?”

Erwin shook his head at Levi's jab, a pallid smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Early this morning.” The smile disappeared. He inclined his head. “Walk with me.” He paused, then looked over at Mikasa. There was a curious expression on his face. “You too, Ackerman. This is something you should hear.”

Levi fell into step beside the taller man, Mikasa trailing behind. After a few minutes of aimless conversation, Levi frowned and slowed to a stop. He and Mikasa needed rest, not a fucking stroll. He crossed his arms. “Why don’t you just say whatever you have to say, Erwin? It’s not like I haven’t gotten an earful of shit from you before.”

The blonde man raised his eyebrows at that. “True. But I think this might surprise you.” His face became instantly serious. “It’s about Eren.”

“Eren?” Mikasa drew in a sharp breath.

Erwin glanced over at her, and suddenly Levi knew with perfect clarity what the Commander was going to say, and the shock of it almost stole the wind from his lungs.

_But it’s not possible,_ he thought in disbelief. _I saw him fall. Mikasa saw him fall._

Mikasa…

He looked back at her. She was holding her breath, her eyes full of expectant hope, her pulse hammering at the base of her bare neck.

Levi remembered how it felt to kiss her there, how it felt to have her wrapped around him.

She had needed him. But she had only needed him because Jaeger wasn’t there.

“Yes,” Erwin said, interrupting his thoughts. He looked them both in the eye, his own blazing with intensity.

“Eren Jaeger is alive.”


	4. Fighting is Easier Than Feeling

“Mikasa? I brought you some dinner. I thought you might be hungry.”

Mikasa tore her gaze away from Eren’s sleeping form long enough to give Sasha a quick shake of her head. “Thank you, but no, I’m not hungry.” Her voice was raspy from disuse.

Sasha bit her lip, fidgeting. “I figured you’d say that, but you’ve been here for two days. You really should eat something.” She held out an apple and a roll of bread. “Please? We’re all worried about you.”

 _Not as much as I’m worried about Eren._ Even though he was right in front of her, she still had trouble believing that he'd survived the fall, that a few curious passerbys had pulled his unconscious, injured body from the remains of his broken Titan form. She was still afraid for him, still wracked with worry that he might not recover, that he might just sleep and sleep until he was nothing but dust and bones.

But Mikasa knew that Sasha was trying to help, that she meant well, so she reached out and numbly took the proffered food even though she had no intention of eating it, mumbling a half-hearted "Thanks."

Sasha nodded, giving her an encouraging smile. “Great! Okay, well, just let me know if you need anything else?”

Mikasa mustered up a wan smile. “I will.”

Sasha’s rigid posture seemed to relax slightly. “Okay. See you later, Mikasa,” she said, and then with a parting glance towards Eren, she left.

Mikasa put the food down on the bedside table and sighed, looking back at Eren. He was propped up on the bed, and most of his wounds looked to be healing well, his bruises fading. But he hadn’t yet woken up. Staying by his side day and night was excessive- she knew that- but she wanted to be there when he opened his eyes. She’d missed them so much- the expressive green orbs that could burn with fiery purpose one minute and twinkle with humor the next. She reached out and gently clasped his bandaged hand in hers. He didn’t stir.

 _Wake up, Eren_ , she willed him silently. _Wake up_.

“You make one hell of a bodyguard, Ackerman.”

Her pulse jumped at the sound of his voice. She snatched her hands away from Eren and looked up.

Captain Levi was leaning casually against the door frame, arms and ankles crossed.

Mikasa scowled at the sudden rush of butterflies in her stomach. _I can’t react like this to him anymore. Not now that Eren is back_.

“I wasn’t guarding him, Heichou,” she answered. “I just don’t want him to be alone.”

“I understand that, but neglecting yourself to stay by his side every waking moment is unhealthy.” He stared pointedly at her untouched food. “For starters, you need to eat.”

“I will.”

“Go ahead, then.”

There was no point in arguing, so Mikasa reached over and picked up the apple. She rolled it in her hands for a minute, staring at its vibrant red color. It reminded her of her scarf, which was still folded neatly in her room. She hadn’t worn it since the day they’d gone looking for Connie and Sasha.

“It’s a piece of fruit, Ackerman, not a fucking memento. Just eat the damn thing.”

She scowled up at him but raised the apple to her lips, taking a small bite. She chewed it woodenly, her taste buds numb to its sweet flavor. She swallowed.

Levi sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s always a fight with you, even when what I’m saying is for your own damn good.”

 _Better to fight than feel._ “Fighting is what I do best.”

There was a pause. “I wouldn’t say that,” he said darkly, amusement flashing in his eyes.

Mikasa blushed a fierce shade of scarlet and lowered her head, too embarrassed to look him in the eye. She squeezed the apple so tightly that some of the juice began to bleed through her fingers. Her cheeks were burning. “Heichou…” she began, the words sticking in her throat.

She heard him sigh. “Let me guess,” he said dryly. “Eren is back, so whatever was going on between us is over. You’ll go back to being an overprotective, love-sick guard dog and I can fuck off.” His voice was icy. “Is that the gist of it?”

It more or less was, with one huge exception: she didn’t _want_ it to be over. She had kept her distance from Levi since the Commander had told them that Eren was alive, but that didn’t change the fact that her pulse quickened every time she saw him, or that she ached for the roughness of his hands and lips every night.

But Mikasa wasn’t about to admit that. She had to quit him, _before_ Eren woke up.

She looked up at him. “Yes. It’s over.”

He didn’t move a muscle- didn’t even blink- but Mikasa thought she saw a flicker of hurt crack through his indifferent expression. When he spoke, however, his voice was as calm and smooth as glass. “If that’s what you want, Mikasa.” He pushed away from the door, standing up straight. He inclined his head towards Eren. “Let me know when Jaeger wakes up. There will be a lot to discuss.”

He turned away but paused in the doorway, glancing at her over his shoulder. “And finish the damn apple. I don’t need you getting sick on me again.”

She watched him leave, feeling torn. Part of her wanted to go after him and apologize, while another part of her wanted to wring his neck for making her feel that way to begin with. Instead, she just sat there and stared after him, feeling empty.

 _Don’t miss him. Don’t even think about him_.

She looked down at Eren, refocusing her attention where it needed to be.

And saw green eyes staring up at her.

She sucked in a sharp breath, her dark eyes widening. “Eren!” Her heart did a jubilant somersault.

Eren reached up and rubbed a bandaged hand at his bleary eyes, shaking his head slowly from side to side. “Mikasa?” He mumbled, frown lines creasing his brow. He blinked away the vestiges of sleep, his eyes clearing. “Where am I? What’s going on?" His voice was thick, confused.

Happy tears of relief filled her eyes, and Mikasa smiled down at him- her first real smile in weeks. “You’re safe now, that’s all that matters. We’re back at base. You need to rest and get your strength back, but you’re okay.” She gingerly gripped his hand, careful not to squeeze it too tightly. Her gaze was fierce. “I promise I won’t fail you again, Eren.”

He gave her a weak smile, his eyes beginning to shut again. “You always…worry so much…” His breathing deepened as he fell back asleep.

Mikasa stayed by his side, the apple forgotten.

 

**

"Eren, be careful!" Mikasa instinctively reached out her arms, steadying him as he began to stumble.

He grimaced, pulling out of her grasp. "I'm okay, Mikasa. I've got to get my strength back." He took another step, then another, his legs shaking badly.

Mikasa bit her lip as she watched him make his way across the room. He gripped the wall for a minute when he reached it, breathing hard, then turned around and slowly began to make his way back towards her. His face was pale and sweat was beading on his brow, but his jaw was set in stubborn determination.

He had almost made it the whole way to her when he fell, his legs giving out from under him.

She raced forward, alarm bells ringing. "Eren? Eren, are you okay?" She asked, anxiety making her voice sharp.

He cursed, then waved his hands at her in annoyance. "I'm fine!" He shouted angrily. He sighed when he saw her recoil at the acidity in his voice. "I'm sorry; I'm not mad at you. It's just...I want to be better. I'm sick of feeling like an invalid." He looked up at her. "I'm useless to everyone like this."

She felt her heart swell with sympathy for him. "You've only been awake for a few days, Eren. You're not useless- you just need more rest."

"Rest." He snorted, his green eyes flashing with indignation. Taking a deep breath, he pushed himself to standing, shaking his head when she tried to help him. "I can do it by myself," he insisted.

He did, and he made his way back to bed without her assistance. He sat down heavily, his energy spent, but he looked pleased with himself. "See?" He said, as if to prove his point. "I'm okay. And don't worry; I _will_ rest more... so long as you let me do it my way," he hedged.

Mikasa swallowed her protests. She wasn't happy that he was being foolishly hard on himself, but she knew she couldn't change his mind.

"Mikasa?"

She looked up, her eyes widening as Eren reached for her hand. He clasped it in his, squeezing it weakly. He gave her a small smile. "I mean it: don't worry so much. We're family, but that doesn't mean you're my keeper. I don't want you to be. So please stop worrying about me."

She tried not to let the hurt show. _I only do it because I care,_ she wanted to say.  _Why have you never understood that?_

"I'll try to worry less," she said instead.

 

**

His muscles were straining, hands nearly numb beneath his wraps. And yet he kept up his furious pace, pounding the worn leather into submission with an unending stream of jabs as he danced nimbly around the heavy bag. His body desperately needed a break but he didn’t give it one.

Better to deal with physical pain than emotional pain.

He started a new combination, practicing his footwork and switching to hook shots on the bag. He’d only been at it for a minute or two when he heard a noise behind him.

Levi whipped around- practiced scowl in place- to see who in the holy fuck was up at this hour and encroaching on his gym time. He was more than ready to give whoever it was a piece of his mind.

His breath hitched. Anyone except _her_ , that was.

Mikasa was standing by the door in a workout bra and shorts, a black duffel clutched in her left hand.

Levi groaned inwardly. Of all people, why did it have to be her?

He reached out and steadied the heavy bag, the large prop groaning in protest as he stopped it from swinging. “Ackerman,” he said.

 _I come here to forget about the damn brat and she shows up. I have absolute shit luck_. “What are you doing here?” He asked like he didn't care, his tone one of disinterest. “It’s a bit late for a workout.”

A flash of anger lit her features and she dropped her bag, crossing her arms. “ _You’re_ here,” she spat back.

His lips pressed into a hard line at the anger in her voice. "Do you have any emotional setting besides hostile?" He quipped as he sidled towards her. He stopped a few feet away. “I’m always here this late; it’s when I get my personal sessions in. But you…” He arched a brow. “What could be keeping you up, I wonder?” He could see her restlessness, could nearly taste it. “Hmm…it wouldn’t have anything to do with your Titan boy wonder, would it?” He guessed.

She glared at him, her hands balling into fists.

 _Looks like I struck a nerve_ , he thought smugly.

“No,” she snapped. “I just wanted to use the gym. But I’ll come back later.”

He almost let her walk away. Almost.

“You should stay,” he said as she bent down to pick up her duffel. She glanced up at him, and something in her eyes made him continue. His voice dropped. “I know what you need, and you won't get it from a solo session.”

She drew in a sharp breath as her face flamed red. She dropped her bag back down and took a menacing step towards him, a vein appearing in her bicep as she brought her fist up.

His lips curled up in a wry smile. “Always assuming things…” he muttered, eyeing her fist. He looked up at her. “I didn’t mean it like that, Ackerman."

A part of him had _definitely_ meant it like that.

"What I meant was that you need a good fight, someone to hit. Someone who can take it.” He crossed his arms. “I can give you that opportunity.”

Mikasa blinked in surprise, her fist still suspended between them. She lowered her arm. “You want me... to spar you?”

“You need it.” He flexed his wrapped fingers. “Frankly, so do I.”

 _That_ was for bloody sure. He was hungry for a fight, itching for a little bit of violence. And he knew her well enough to recognize that same hunger burning in her eyes.

They were more alike than either of them would care to admit.

Mikasa bit her lip, hesitating. She didn’t say anything to deny that he was right, but she also didn’t confirm it.

Levi sensed her indecision, so he took a step closer to her, leaning in. The soft scent of pine assaulted his nostrils, reviving not-so-distant memories. He suppressed a shudder, beat down the urge to reach out and crush her to him. “What are you afraid of?” He murmured quietly. “That I might win? Or that if we get too close…” He let the thought trail off suggestively.

That did it. She shoved him back, hard. “Let’s fight.” Her words were laced with venom, and the look on her face was pure vitriol. She rummaged in her duffel for her wraps and then wound them with practiced ease around her hands, making sure to wrap her knuckles especially well.

Levi waited, his expression impassive as he watched her seethe with anger. She looked like she was prepping for a kill.

Well, he _had_ wanted to make her mad.

When she was done with the wraps, he sauntered over to the open mat area, Mikasa tailing him. He turned, facing her. “Rules?” He asked.

“None. Unless _you_ want them,” she added, a hint of challenge in her voice.

He shook his head. He didn’t want or need them. “Ready?”

“Ready.”

They circled each other, both of them settling easily into their offensive stances. Mikasa followed his every step, catching every subtle nuance in his form, her eyes caging him. Levi moved around with self-assured calm, watching her watching him, his muscles twitching in readiness. It was animalistic, only neither of them was the prey. They were both strong, both dangerous. Predator versus predator.

Without warning, Mikasa lunged for him, her attack completely silent. It might have taken a lesser opponent by surprise, but Levi spun nimbly away as she reached him and her fist went sailing through nothing but air. Quick as a cat, she turned and lashed out again. She threw jab after jab but Levi blocked them all, knocking them aside easily. She was fast, but he could tell she was distracted, not giving it her all.

He decided to get her full attention.

Pushing off of his back leg, he jumped forward with a spinning roundhouse kick, aiming for her ribs. Mikasa gasped and twisted away at the last moment, barely evading his foot. Before she could counter his attack, he came up behind her and struck the back of her knees with his foot, making her legs buckle. As soon as her balance faltered, he grabbed her in a chokehold, his right arm latching securely around her neck. His other arm wrapped around her toned stomach, his palm sliding hotly against her flushed skin.

He heard her gasp, felt the firm muscles of her abdomen quiver beneath his hand. She leaned back into him, and for a heady second Levi felt her relax into his body, almost as if she wanted...

He swallowed, his grip on her bare stomach tightening. Mikasa squirmed against him, an involuntary sound of frustration escaping her lips as his hand dipped down towards the waistband of her shorts.

His heart thudded, his blood boiling. He wanted her, but she’d told him no, made it clear that it was over. He gritted his teeth. “Focus, Mikasa,” he whispered in her ear. He let his words be cold, condescending. “I expected more of a challenge from you.”

She stopped squirming, regaining control of herself. “And you’ll get one,” she promised threateningly.

Without warning, she brought her left hand down in a violent palm strike, hitting him below the ribs, while she simultaneously reached up with her right hand and yanked hard on the arm around her neck. She caught him off guard, and Levi sucked in a breath as the heel of her hand dug painfully into his lower abdomen, his grip on her slackening.

Taking advantage, she twisted beneath his arm and broke free of the chokehold, torquing his wrist as she did so and forcing him to bend over as she stood up. Without hesitation, she brought her foot up towards his hunched form and kicked him in the face. She made to do it a second time but Levi caught her foot, knocking her off balance. She fell to the floor, landing with a heavy thud, but she recovered quickly, pushing herself up into a crouched position, her arms raised in defense.

But Levi didn’t attack her right away; he had stumbled back a pace after knocking her down. His face was stinging where she’d kicked him. He wiped at his nose, his eyes widening in surprise when his hand came away bloody. He looked at the splotch of red in disgust before his eyes locked onto hers. “Better,” he said, suddenly wishing that he hadn't provoked her so much. He was already tired from his earlier workout, and she was running on anger.

Which his acknowledgment only seemed to fuel.

Gritting her teeth in determination, Mikasa tucked and rolled, covering the space between them in a heartbeat. She barreled into his shins, her body momentum knocking him off of his feet.

His eyes widened as she smacked into him. _Fuck_.

He fell hard to the mat and she was on him in a flash, fists flying. She hit him once, twice, made to strike him again- but just as she brought her fist down towards his face, Levi windmilled his arms up and brought his elbows smashing into hers. She fell against him, startled, but before she could push away from him he wrapped one of his legs around hers and gripped her sides, rolling them over. _Got you._ He pinned her beneath him, pressing the length of his body into hers to hold her down, his hands locking like chains around her wrists.

She struggled, trying to free herself, but he only pressed her deeper into the mat, unrelenting. Suddenly, as she continued to struggle, her hips shifted up, the apex of her thighs rubbing against him.

Mikasa stilled instantly and Levi froze, every nerve ending in his body jolting. He could tell by her startled gasp that the motion had been unintentional, but the subtle way she opened her legs wider against him now _wasn't_. His pulse was suddenly a drum in his ears, and he could feel her racing heartbeat where their chests were pressed together. He could also feel the heat of her, and the memory of sinking into that heat made him uncomfortably hard. He knew _she_ could feel him, too, because he heard the needy, lustful whimper that tore from her throat, felt her hips press against his just a tiny bit harder, craving that sinful friction that was only a few measly scraps of clothing away.

Her words echoed in his head, knocking around like mice in a cage. _It's over_.

He stayed still, waiting for her to decide what to do.

Mikasa took a shaky inhale, exhaled it slowly. “Call,” she said in a breathy voice. "You...you win, Heichou."

 _No, I didn't._ He leaned back, leveraging his weight off of her. When she met his gaze her eyes were wild and dark, and the hunger was still there, even more potent than before.

Levi closed his eyes, shutting her out. Having her beneath him was temptation enough; if he stared into her beckoning eyes any longer, his tenuous grasp of self-control was going to snap, and he wasn't willing to take the risk. He'd given her the chance to change her mind and she hadn't; he wasn't going to change it for her, even though he was almost certain he could.

Taking a steadying breath, he released her, rolling to the side.

Mikasa sat up immediately. Her chest was still heaving from the fight and her hair was pressing damply to the back of her neck. A few beads of sweat were running down the center of her bra, darkening the gray material.

 _At least I wasn’t the only one pushing my limits_ , he thought as he pressed a towel to his nose, wiping away more blood. His nose wasn’t broken, but it was painful to the touch. He winced.

“Heichou, are you okay?” She scooted towards him, looking guilty.

“I’m fine.” His pride was more wounded than his face. He’d won the fight but he’d lost any chance he'd had of cooling down. There was no way he was going to be able to sleep. He was aroused, frustrated, and he'd gotten kicked in the process. It was the perfect ending to a perfect night.

Mikasa bit her lip and reached out to pull the towel away, not believing him. “You don’t look fine,” she said.

He stopped her, catching her hand with his free one. “I’m fine,” he repeated.

She grimaced. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you bleed. I- I got carried away.”

True, but not in the way he'd been _hoping_ she'd get carried away. “We did agree to no rules, remember?” He sighed, putting the towel down when he was sure he’d stemmed the blood. “And I was antagonizing you, winding you up. I think it’s safe to say I had it coming.”

He watched as her lips pulled up into a sheepish smile. “I guess you could say that,” she agreed.

He realized then that he was still holding her hand, his thumb brushing unconsciously back and forth across her knuckles just like he'd done that night in the cave. When things had been different.

He cleared his throat. “How is Eren?” He asked. His voice was low, subdued.

“Better.” Her gaze lingered on their hands. “Almost back to his old self.”

Levi frowned. If that was the case, why didn't she sound happier? “But you’re not.” It was a statement, not a question.

Mikasa looked up at him. “I’m okay,” she said quietly.

He could tell that that wasn’t quite the truth- that she was holding back. And fuck it all, but he _cared_ ; he didn't want to see her unhappy. “Mikasa…” His fingers tightened on her hand, and suddenly she was leaning forward, leaning into him. Her lips parted ever so slightly, an unconscious invitation that made his throat go dry. 

_It's over._

Levi shut his eyes, a muscle clenching in his jaw.

_It's over._

Using an impressive amount of willpower, he released her hand and stood up. “You should get some rest,” he said gruffly, obvious strain in his voice.

Mikasa swallowed, her eyes dropping to his mouth before looking down at the floor. “Oh. Okay, Heichou. I’ll wipe the gear down before I leave.”

Levi stared at her for a protracted moment, debating with himself.

 _Tell her you want her- that you never stopped wanting_ _her_ , came the nagging voice in his head. _Ask her to stay with you. She'd say yes._

But all he did was nod and head for the door. Even if he could convince her to sleep with him again, she'd probably be thinking of Eren Fucking Jaeger the whole time she was with him. And Levi wasn't fond of sharing.

He picked up his towel and bag, not bothering to undo his wraps. “Goodnight, Mikasa,” he called softly to her, and then he walked away.

 

**

As soon as he left, Mikasa let herself fall back on the mat, staring up at the ceiling in aggravation. She pressed her palms to her burning cheeks, inhaling shakily. She closed her eyes, feeling even more restless and unsatisfied than she had before they'd sparred.

She wondered if Levi had noticed how badly she was burning for him. As if he could have missed it _._

Having Eren back in her life should have made things simpler, but everything only felt more complicated. She thought she’d been using Levi to fill the hole Eren had left behind, that she had needed him because of the physical comfort he had offered, nothing more.

She frowned, feeling miserable. _Why do I still want him? I love Eren, not him._

So why was it that she woke up night after night pining not for the boy she’d grown up with but for her Captain?

 _She_ had told him it was over. _She_ had ended it.

And yet a part of her had been hoping that he wouldn’t accept that, that he’d at least act like it was hard to let go.

But in the end she was the one still aching.

Mikasa groaned, pounding her fists into the mat in frustration, feeling lonelier than ever. _  
_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I had a bit of vicarious fun writing the fight scene...I'm more or less off my feet (foot surgery, ugh) and REALLY missing all things gym and boxing related. Guess for now I have to be content with L & M duking it out for me ;)


	5. Following Orders

His job was a tiring one, and that was putting it mildly.

Commander Erwin Smith looked down at the mountains of untouched paperwork on his desk, willing himself to start somewhere. Anywhere. But he didn’t; instead, he leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, taking a moment to regroup. Too many long hours had passed since he’d last seen the back of his eyelids, and he was exhausted.

He sighed. His head was pounding. He’d felt the beginnings of a headache earlier, creeping up behind his eyes, but now it was a full-blown migraine, drilling at every nerve ending in his head. There was no relief- just the ceaseless, throbbing pain. And yet he was almost used to it; he seemed to get migraines often these days. Not that that was a surprise, given all of the pressure he was under and the endless stream of bad breaks that seemed to constantly befall his branch of the military. For every soldier he lost (and he'd lost a lot of them) he seemed to gain another adversary. If it wasn’t Titans, it was the MP, or the crown, or some other new vexation hell-bent on destroying anyone wearing the wings of freedom on their back.

_It’s enough to make anyone go mad._

He felt a phantom itch in his right hand and reflexively reached over to scratch it before remembering that his hand was no longer there. He chuckled to himself as he imagined how much easier it would be to conquer some of his work if he still had both hands.

 _No matter how bad things are, they can always get worse_. And the news he’d received today had been further proof of that ugly truth.

A low, familiar voice cut into his thoughts. “You look awfully relaxed for someone who has so much to do, Erwin. If I’d come in a minute later, I probably would’ve caught you sleeping on the job.”

Erwin opened his eyes, watching as Captain Levi sat down on the couch by the window and lazily draped one leg over the other. Erwin gave him a half-smile. “One of the perks of being in charge,” he joked.

Levi shrugged. “Maybe. But just think of what that shitty four-eyes would say if she saw you lounging about. There would be hell to pay.”

“I suppose I’m lucky that Hanji is busy at the moment, and that I am- as of yet- still in charge around here.”

“I suppose you are.” The shorter man adjusted the cravat at his neck, smoothing the pressed linen back into wrinkle-free perfection. “What did you want to see me about, Erwin?” He asked, reining the conversation in.

For once, Erwin wished Levi wasn't so opposed to engaging in pointless banter; smalltalk could be a blissful distraction at times. But he got to the point. “I have news to share. It isn’t good news.”

“Is it ever?”

He sighed. “No, it never seems to be. But this is different.” _This is worse_ , he thought. But he kept that to himself, choosing to use tact over pessimism. “We’ve suffered a setback, one that could prove catastrophic.” He straightened up. “Annie Leonhardt has broken out of her crystal. She has escaped.”

He tried to gauge the other man’s reaction, but Levi’s expression gave nothing of his feelings away; no tell as to how this news had affected him. And yet Erwin knew him well enough to see the tightness of control there. His Captain may not be visibly ruffled, but his drawn out silence and stolidity spoke volumes.

“I have reliable sources that say she is still in the city,” he continued, “and it is our job to make sure we recapture her while she is still within our reach. Which is why I am sending you and Mikasa Ackerman after her.”

The Captain looked up at that, his brows rising in surprise.

“Let me explain,” he went on. “The Female Titan has bested us every time we’ve used brute force against her; the only reason we captured her when we did was because of Eren, and right now, Eren isn’t strong enough to take her again. He’s still recuperating.” He fixed Levi with an authoritative stare. “The only chance we have is to take her in human form, and to do that requires stealth and speed, which is why the two of you will go alone.” He leaned forward in his chair, placing his elbow on the table. “You are the best soldier I have, Levi, and from what I’ve heard and seen, Mikasa is cut from the same cloth. I’m sorry to throw this responsibility on your shoulders, but there is truly no better alternative. You will leave today for Stohess District. Keep a low profile once you get there. Do all in your power to find Annie, and if possible, take her alive. These are your orders.” He paused. “Any other decisions I leave up to your discretion. Do what you need to do.”

Levi leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees, processing. After a few moments, he nodded. “Okay, Erwin. But I should go by myself; as you said, this requires stealth and speed, which I can employ more of if I am alone.”

Erwin shook his head. “No. You might be right, but Mikasa also knows Annie since they trained and graduated together. That familiarity might prove useful.”

“There are others who graduated with Annie, and I don’t hear you suggesting that they go. You’re putting her in danger.”

 _Putting her in danger?_ There was a turn of phrase he'd never expected to hear cross the Captain's lips. Erwin frowned. “Mikasa is the most capable soldier from her year, the best candidate.” He cocked his head, raising a heavy eyebrow. “Or don’t you agree?”

“No, she is by far. It’s…not that.” Levi bowed his head, his bangs falling forward and hiding his eyes, agitation chipping at his composure.

“What is it, then? Are you worried she won’t follow orders?” The Captain’s previous argument came to mind. “Or maybe you’re worried that she’ll...get hurt?”

Something- some unfathomable emotion- flickered across Levi’s face, gone so fast Erwin didn’t have a chance to put a name to it.

“I...” Levi cut himself off and stood up. “Never mind. I’ll handle it.”

“I have no doubt,” he replied, not quite sure what the shorter man meant.

Levi walked to the door but paused just inside, facing away from him. “I don’t want to lose anyone else because of that Titan bitch, Erwin. She isn’t worth it.” He glanced over his shoulder, his eerily unshakable gaze meeting his. “And if I even think she’s a threat, I’ll kill her.”

He walked away.

Erwin stared at the empty doorway, thinking. It was strange behavior, to say the least. The tension in the room had been palpable as their conversation had turned to Mikasa, and for the life of him, Erwin couldn’t figure out why. It hadn’t been _angry_ tension. No- it had been something else, something…different. He’d noticed it on the day he’d told them about Eren, too, in the way that he and Mikasa had acted around each other. If he hadn’t known better, he would almost have thought…

But that was impossible. He chuckled to himself. _Ackerman and Levi?_ He rubbed a hand over his tired eyes. He had clearly overworked himself to the point of utter insanity. There was no other explanation for it.

Sighing, he refocused his attention on the task at hand and picked up the file closest to him. Yes, he was exhausted, but he was the Commander of the Survey Corps.

He could rest when the war was done.

Blinking against the alluring sleepiness tempting him to close his eyes _just for a little while_ , he opened the file and began to read.

 

**

He was packing when she burst into his room, no knock of courtesy given.

“You have to make the Commander reconsider,” Mikasa blurted out as she shut the door behind her.

Levi met her obvious agitation with unwavering calm. “And why is that?” He asked blandly.

She clutched a hand to her neck by force of habit, lowering it when she remembered her scarf wasn’t there. “I can’t leave Eren alone,” she said, but her shiftiness belied the veracity of her words, as did her lowered gaze, the way her eyes darted erratically from spot to spot on the floor.

 _You’re a terrible liar, Mikasa,_ he mused. He wondered how many times she’d rehearsed that line before saying it.

But instead of calling her out on her lie he skirted around it. “Eren won’t _be_ alone. He’ll be here, surrounded by half of the fucking Corps.” He pressed his lips together. “Have any other lame excuses to throw at me? Because if you don’t, I’d suggest you go pack. Erwin made it clear that we’re to leave as soon as possible.” He placed a precisely folded change of clothes in his bag. “And learn how to fucking knock,” he muttered.

She didn’t move. “It isn’t a lame excuse, Heichou. The Commander could send him out on a mission while we’re gone, and who will protect him if both of us are somewhere else?”

Levi felt his thin supply of patience evaporating. “Erwin is not going to send him anywhere, not until Eren's more than healed and he’s been cleared for active duty by Hanji.”

Mikasa frowned. “You can’t know that.”

Levi dropped another pair of pants into the bag, his patience gone. “Bullshit.” _Enough of this._ He gave her a hostile stare. “This has nothing to do with Jaeger, so don’t pretend it does.” He circled the bed, walking towards her. “This has to do with the fact that Erwin is sending the two of us on a mission. _Alone._ ” He overemphasized the last word, catching the subtle tensing of her neck muscles as he did so. It gave him a smug sense of satisfaction to know he was right.

Well, fuck skirting the issue now; he may as well say his piece. He crossed his arms. “That’s the real reason you want me to change Erwin’s mind.” He stepped closer to her, caging her in as she backed into the wall. He lowered his voice. “You’re afraid of what might happen when we’re alone.”

“No, I’m not,” she retorted, but her tone was anything but convincing.

“More bullshit.” He decided to test his theory. He closed the small gap between them, stepping in so that their bodies were a hairbreadth away, so close that if either one of them shifted they'd be pressed together. Before she had a chance to react, he brought his arms up on either side of her like iron bars, imprisoning her.

A tense, suspended moment passed. Levi looked into her eyes, gauging her reaction as he slowly brought his lips towards hers. She did nothing to stop him, just pressed farther back against the wall, her palms flat against the unforgiving surface. But instead of kissing her he moved his lips to her ear, letting his breath tickle her tender skin. His mouth was wickedly close, almost brushing her earlobe, teasing her with the promise of a touch while leaving just enough maddening space between them. “Go ahead and deny it again,” he whispered darkly as he moved his lips over the skittering pulse in her neck. He heard her suck in a sharp breath. “Deny it all you want.” His gaze flickered to hers. "I’ll still know you’re lying.”

Mikasa said nothing. Her dark eyes were glassy with tears, and he could see need and guilt swimming in them. When she finally did speak, her voice was thick, strained. “ _Please_ ,” she whispered, the word simultaneously an invitation and a restraint. She swallowed. “You’re…wrong. Please let it go.”

If only he could.

Levi pulled back slightly, putting a few much needed inches between them. He wanted her, but at the moment his trepidation about the mission outweighed his desire. He exhaled. “Fine; I’m not going to make you face the truth.” _Not now, at least._ “This mission is about finding Annie. She is our one and only priority, not dealing with your convoluted feelings about our fucked-up…” He caught himself before the word _relationship_ could slip out- “…history. That bullshit has got to end. Erwin is sending us on this mission whether you like it or not, and we need to be able to work together without your attitude getting in the way. I need to know that I can trust you to follow my orders when we’re out in the field.” He imbued his words with a note of authority. “So get this through your stubborn fucking skull: while we’re in Stohess, you will _obey_ me. If I give you an order, you’ll follow it, no questions asked. Understood?”

She stiffened, bristling at his tone, her nostrils flaring in anger. “Yes,” she snapped, staring daggers at him. “I’ll follow your orders. You don’t have to be cruel to get your point across.”

“Don’t I?”

“No.”

She started to move away, but Levi grabbed her arm, shoving her back against the wall. “I disagree,” he growled dangerously, his eyes glittering. “The last time we faced Annie together you disobeyed me and it almost got you killed. Your impulsiveness nearly made us lose Eren and it resulted in my injury. I refuse to regurgitate that scenario.”

He released her brusquely, but his temper cooled as he saw the ugly fingermarks he’d left tattooed on her arm. He winced, a wave of instant self-loathing drowning him.

He'd hurt her- the last thing he wanted to do.

Hell, it was because he was so damn worried about her _getting_ hurt that he’d snapped in the first place. What a fucking irony.

He took a calming breath, his eyes riveted in shame to the bruises he'd made on her skin. “I said our one and only priority is apprehending Annie, but really it’s to get us both back in one piece.” He looked up at her. “I need to know you’re with me on that- that you’ll play it safe if I tell you to.” He remembered the way his stomach had dropped when she’d gone in for the kill in the forest, the way he’d seen her impending death flash painfully in his mind. “Don’t try to be a hero, Mikasa.”

She was quiet for a time. “I won’t if you won’t, Heichou,” she said under her breath. She looked him in the eye. “You should take your own advice once in a while,” she added, her confidence returning. She stepped around him. “I’ll… go get ready.”

He couldn't leave it like that. “Ackerman.”

She stopped and glanced back, waiting for him to speak.

His voice was thick with guilt. “I didn’t mean to-”

Her dark eyes softened. “I know, Heichou,” she said quietly. “It’s okay.”

He nodded, swallowed, and then stood there mutely, unable to come up with anything meaningful to say. He wished he could express himself clearly, but his talent rested in blades, not words.

Mikasa waited for a second more before she turned and headed for the door.

 _I should apologize._ “Pack quickly and lightly,” he called instead to her retreating back. “I don’t want to be traveling after dark if we can avoid it.”

She left, and Levi stared after her, feeling miserable. "I am the shittiest person I know, and that is saying something," he mumbled to no one in particular. He resumed packing, numbly going through the motions as his thoughts crowded in.

_Annie is our only priority._

Right. Because the knowledge that he was going to be alone with Mikasa Ackerman for an extended period of time with no distractions would certainly be easy to ignore.

They hadn’t even left yet and his blood pressure was already through the roof because of her. He was angry with her, worried for her, and more than anything else, he still...

He shook his head. Erwin would shit his pants if he knew just how volatile a situation he'd created by sending them off alone, especially after everything that had transpired between them. It was like mixing pressurized warm and cold air and hoping not to generate a tornado: un-fucking likely. It was only a matter of time. 

If they didn't have Annie to worry about, he almost would've welcomed the storm, just to have some kind of release, some kind of closure. But he couldn't; finding Annie was crucial and it had to take precedence. If it were anyone else, he wouldn't have cared as much, but this particular bitch had killed- no, _butchered_ \- his entire squad. His friends. The only people whose company he hadn't minded. He might not let it show, but he still missed them. He missed them every fucking day.

So the idea that Annie Leonhardt might taste freedom, even for a short while, was unacceptable to him. Revolting.

He'd told Mikasa to stow the bullshit, but that would only work if he did the same. He had to leave his feelings behind; the mission would be a disaster otherwise.

He placed a small dagger and a spare pistol in his bag, burying them beneath a pair of pants to hide them. Then, with nothing else to pack, he zipped up his bag and sat down on the bed with a long sigh, his thoughts straying yet again to one sullen, dark-haired, regrettably intoxicating brat.

He was so fucked.

 

**

They beat the setting sun, but only barely, the shadows stretching long and dark on the ground behind them as they galloped through the gates of the city.

Mikasa tugged the scarf up higher on her neck, fighting the chill that had started to nip at her exposed skin. It wasn’t _her_ scarf, of course. Red was too conspicuous a color, didn’t fit with the Commander's orders to keep a low profile. This one was black wool, and scratchy. Idly, she wondered how she’d gone so long wearing Eren’s scarf; her neck couldn’t breathe, and she felt the cumbersome weight of it with every trot of her horse. The truth was, she'd gotten used to the liberation of not having anything around her neck, and the only reason she didn't take _this_ scarf off now was because it was, at least, keeping her warm _._

She glanced over as Levi tugged on his reins and dug his heels in hard against his mare’s flanks, drawing to a halt. Mikasa followed suit, dismounting and waiting for instructions. She was too saddle-sore to do anything else.

Levi dismounted beside her, landing softly on the ground. He was in civilian clothes, just like she was, and yet he somehow retained the crispness of his appearance as if he were still in uniform. He was wearing black fatigues, a grey knit shirt, and a stark black jacket. They were all quality items, though Mikasa had no idea where he could’ve bought them, or when.

 _I wonder if he stole them._ She pushed the ridiculous notion away when she realized he was talking to her.

“We’ll leave the horses here and walk the rest of the way. Riders aren’t a common sight and the horses might stir up unwanted attention. Here, give me your reins.”

She did, and watched as he walked down a side street, disappearing from view.

He was only gone for a few minutes, but it felt like hours. No one was around, and the air had grown cold and colder still since the sun had dipped below the walls of the city. She started to shiver, mentally kicking herself for not thinking to bring a warmer set of clothes. Her thin sweater was not doing much in the way of protecting her against the cold, even with the aid of the bulky scarf. She was usually more foresighted about such things, but she’d been distracted the entire time she’d packed, consumed with thoughts of Annie and the fact that she might have to face her traitorous classmate again.

It made her blood run cold, not with fear but with hatred.

_Don't try to be a hero, Mikasa._

The memory of his words dulled her malice a bit. She understood what he'd meant; she wasn't some summer child ignorant of what the winter frosts could bring. _Don't try to be a hero,_ she thought to herself, _because heroes always die._ The Captain had lost his entire squad to the Female Titan because they'd felt the need to be heroic, and she imagined they weren't the first he'd lost that way. He'd been warning her to be careful because he'd seen it all before.

Unconsciously, she touched her arm where the bruises from his fingers had started to form, taking strange comfort in the way they hurt when she pressed her own fingers against them.

“You should’ve worn something a little more weather-appropriate, Ackerman," Levi said, announcing his return with a typical derogatory remark. "You’re shaking like a fucking leaf.”

Mikasa shifted her bag on her shoulders and glared at him. “I’m fine,” she bit back between shivers.

Levi rolled his eyes and dropped his pack. “Like hell you are,” he grumbled as he took off his jacket. He thrust it at her before she could protest. “Here. Put it on and don’t give me shit about it. I don’t feel like listening to your teeth chatter the rest of the way.”

She did- begrudgingly- all the while trying not to notice how fitted the Captain’s grey shirt was, how it accentuated his hard, muscular body.

She remembered how it felt to touch those muscles, the feel of them against her skin as he took her, roughly, as she _let_ him take her. 

She'd enjoyed every second of it.

Angry with herself, she glowered at the ground and fell into step beside him.

By the time they'd left the outskirts of the city behind, Mikasa’s feet were aching and her ears and nose were red, so cold they were burning, but the rest of her was warm. She hadn't thanked Levi for giving her his jacket- wouldn't ever admit that she had needed it- but she was grateful.

When they stopped in front of what once might have been an upstanding establishment but now resembled a dilapidated house of cards, Mikasa drew up short, blinking in confusion. She frowned, taking in the worn façade, the decrepit, dusty WELCOME sign hanging off of one hinge and creaking in the wind, the shutters that were either broken or missing on every window that hadn’t been busted in. It looked abandoned, let alone unfit for habitation.

“ _This_ is where we’re staying?” She asked incredulously, wondering if the cold had polluted the Captain’s brain. Normally, he of all people would certainly have objected to staying in such a dive. (If the place was even still functioning, which Mikasa doubted.)

Levi gave her an enigmatic half-smile. “Outward appearances can be deceiving,” he said. “Which works to our advantage. There is zero chance anyone will recognize us here, partially because no one will look.” He ushered her up the splintered wooden steps, walking beside her. When they reached the top he leaned over, lowering his voice. “Believe it or not, Ackerman, the rooms here are not as shitty as you might think. And they’re clean.”

Mikasa felt her eyes widening in surprise. “You’ve stayed here before?”

He nodded. “A long time ago.” His voice was distant, and for a second he seemed to be someplace else, lost in some faded memory. But then he shook his head, returning to the present as he pulled open the door. He held it for her as they stepped inside.

There was a burly man sitting behind the makeshift counter, and he peered at them with beady eyes as they entered, his double chins sagging towards his chest as he bobbed his head in greeting. “The name’s Joe. You two lookin’ for a room?” His voice matched his person, gruff and thick.

Levi sauntered up to the counter, hands in his pockets. “For one or two days, maybe more. Do you have a vacancy?”

Joe chortled, a belch of a laugh. “Got nothin’ _but_ vacancies these days, even though Sue keeps the place real nice.” He sighed. “I can do ya, sure thing. You an' the missus can have the top floor.” His beady eyes traveled over to where Mikasa was standing by the door. "How’s that sound, pretty lady?” Another obnoxious laugh.

Mikasa blushed, mortified by his presumption. No longer cold, she mumbled a lame “I’ll wait on the porch” and fled outside, casting not so much as a peek at Levi. She didn’t want to know how _he’d_ reacted to that erroneous insinuation, though she was sure he wasn't happy about it. She could picture the look of displeasure that was no doubt plastered on his face.

Closing the door behind her, Mikasa leaned against the railing and sucked in a lungful of cold air, then exhaled it slowly as she glanced up at the few stars already shining in the darkening sky. They were nothing more than pinpoints of faint, flickering light, burning somewhere far, far away. It made her feel indescribably lonely, knowing that she would never feel their warmth.

Perhaps she felt like that because they reflected her own life.

She was alive and healthy and Eren had returned to her- all things that should've made her happy, should've made her feel whole. And yet she was cold inside, yearning for the warmth of the stars but feeling only their yawning distance. _I have everything I could hope for and it isn't enough._ The bitterness of that awareness tore at her, and she felt a few tears pricking at the corners of her eyes.  _Why am I like this? I'm broken inside; I must be._

Taking a deep breath, she blinked back her tears, unwilling to give in to even a moment of weakness. She might be broken, but she was still strong, and she took solace in that as her fingers moved again to the bruises on her arm. She closed her eyes as she dug her nails into her skin, clinging to the pain like an anchor.  

“Well look-y here.”

Mikasa’s eyes flew open as she felt the steel of a blade press against her back. She began to turn but stopped when she felt a sharp prick against her spine.

“None of that, now,” her assailant said as he brought his lips to her ear. One grimy hand came up and gripped her shoulder, holding her still.

Mikasa wrinkled her nose against the nauseating smell of him- he reeked of dirty, unwashed clothes and his breath was heavy with booze, the pungent scent of alcohol enough to make her swoon, although her anger kept her alert. She was furious with herself for being caught with her guard down.

But she wasn’t scared.

_He may have a weapon, but he’s a drunk. He’ll be easy._

She leaned forward, a barely perceptible shift, and just as the knife lost contact with her spine she reached up and yanked hard on the pinkie finger digging into her shoulder, making him yelp in pain.

She bent it backwards until it snapped, then twirled and elbowed him in the face. He stumbled back and Mikasa extended her arm, back-fisting him in the nose, smirking when she heard the crunch of bone.

He howled, cursing out a string of obscenities and waving the knife in front of him wildly, warding her off.

She sidestepped to avoid being sliced and came at him from the side. She was just reaching for the blade when her foot broke through a molding floorboard and she pitched forward. She gasped, yanking her leg out of the hole in the ground, but her unfortunate fall had been all the time her attacker needed to regain the upper hand.

He leered over her, pointing the blade down towards her head.

“You’d be wise not to do that.”

They both looked over as Levi joined them on the porch, Mikasa in relief, her attacker in confusion.

The man gave Levi a bemused appraisal and grinned, flashing the knife in front of him. “I’m the one with the knife, you short fuck. I’ll do what I want.”

“I think not.” Levi’s stance was non-confrontational, but there was a latent threat in the deepness of his voice. “My wife and I don’t want trouble, but I promise you that if you don’t take your disgusting hide down those steps right now, trouble is what you’re going to get.” He took a casual step forward, but there was a dead calm in his eyes that seemed to rob the other man of his cockiness. He shifted above Mikasa, uneasy.

Levi took another step towards him. “Move along, pig.”

The man stumbled back, all his bravado gone. “Hey, no reason to be name-calling. I’m gone.” He skipped down the steps but stopped when he reached the street, his self-assurance returning with distance. He turned to face them and spit at them, glaring. He waved his blade one more time at Mikasa. “You know what? You might be a pretty bitch, but you ain’t worth it, cunt.”

Levi was on him before he had a chance to blink, his fist smashing into whatever part of his nose wasn’t already broken. The man went down with a groan, the knife clattering away. While he was still sniveling and clutching his face, Levi brought his boot crashing down on his chest, cracking ribs. He dug his heel in, bearing down.

The man sputtered, coughing and wheezing, but Levi only pressed down harder, breaking another rib. His eyes flashed. “If I ever hear you so much as _mention_ her again, I will cut off your fingers one by one and make you eat them. And then I’ll kill you. Is that clear?”

“Y-yes,” he rattled. “Just let m-me go _._ You’ll never see me again, I swear!"

Levi stepped off of him. “I’d better not.”

The man crawled away from him and then unceremoniously picked himself up, stumbling as he tried to run down the street. He fell twice before he made it to an alley and darted out of sight.

Mikasa was leaning back against the wall, gaping in shock at what she'd just witnessed. She watched Levi walk up the stairs. There were a million things she wanted to ask him, but when he stopped in front of her all she eked out was: “Wife?”

The Captain shrugged. “It’s a cover that attracts less suspicion than most alternatives.” He scowled, his frown lines deepening. “And if that _filth_ decides to talk, his only story will be that he got beaten up by some girl’s protective husband. It’s not much of a headliner.” He glanced down the street, then up at the ever-darkening sky. “We should go inside,” he said.

Mikasa opened the door and reentered the inn, but she jerked in surprise when she felt Levi’s arm wrap around her waist, pulling her possessively against him.

She was about to shove him away when Joe’s loud voice boomed out, “Well, well, standing up for the missus! Good for you. I appreciate me some old-fashioned chivry.”

“Chivalry,” Levi muttered in correction.

Joe blinked, scratching at his bald pate with a meaty hand. “How’s that?”

“Nothing. Thank you for the room; I think it’s time we retire for the night.”

Joe grinned, revealing a mouth with more teeth missing than present. “Right,” he said, winking. “Time for some _other_ excitement.” He chuckled at his own joke, that same belching laugh that made Mikasa grind her teeth together in irritation.

"Control your temper, Ackerman," Levi whispered as he steered her towards the stairs. He kept his arm secured around her waist as they walked up the steps, and soon Mikasa was focused more on the way the heat and strength of his muscular arm were sending jolts to her core than on her annoyance at their lewd innkeeper. Levi was holding her like it was the most natural thing in the world, and part of her wished it was.

He released her when they reached the second landing, and her body immediately missed the contact. She hid that fact, keeping her expression utterly neutral.

“I think he was convinced,” Levi said as he produced the key and put it in the lock. The door swung open and they stepped through.

Their bags were already in the room, resting on the bed.

 _The bed_.

Mikasa felt the air leave her lungs as she looked at the single, lone, _only_ bed. It should have occurred to her that they’d have to share a room, but it hadn’t.

 _We’re just following orders,_ she reasoned. _Just doing our jobs._

Only she’d ruined any chance they could have at a professional working relationship the day she’d first slept with him. The embers of the fire they’d started then were still alive, still burning, despite the attempts she’d made to asphyxiate them.

She licked her lips, trying to remember all the reasons why letting him in was a bad idea. _I only want him because I'm lonely. If I were somewhere else...somewhere with Eren...I wouldn't feel this way.  
_

She wished she could believe her own lies.

Unable to resist, she sneaked a look at Levi through her lashes and their eyes locked, making her throat go dry as sawdust. The fire was there in his eyes, piercing hot as his gaze raked from her to the bed and back. His gaze traveled slowly, _lingeringly_ , down her body before finally dropping to the floor. A muscle clenched in his jaw.

Mikasa bit her lip against the thrill he'd awakened in her with nothing more than the touch of his eyes. She needed to get control of herself, quickly, or else the situation was going to unravel and all the nights she'd resisted knocking on his door would be for naught.

So she scrambled for her bag and made a show of dumping its contents on the bed. When everything was strewn about, she started rummaging through her things, pretending like she was searching for something in particular.

She heard Levi sigh behind her. "There's no need to make a mess, Ackerman," he grumbled. "Show a little decorum and move your shit."

She swallowed. "I'm just looking for my towel, Heichou," she murmured lamely without turning around. She found it (which was lucky considering she hadn't been sure if she'd remembered to pack a towel) and threw it over her shoulder. Then she scooped up her things and moved her bag to the floor, feeling his eyes burning holes in her back all the while.

She suppressed a groan.

It was going to be a long night.

 


	6. Reflections and Detours

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I saw that this story had gotten 1000+ hits, I almost snorted the water I was drinking all over my laptop screen. 
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading my story, and for all the kudos and comments. I appreciate each and every one of them (and I'm sorry I don't always reply- I will try to be better about that!) Please know that it is your support that keeps inspiring me to write these characters. You guys are awesome!! :)
> 
> Also, special thanks to ChewyKookie for promoting this on Tumblr. Even if I had an account, I'd probably be too shy to post this. So thanks for liking my story enough to share it- you have no idea how much that means to me :)
> 
> So...yeah... Well, that's everything. Happy reading!

Levi threw the last map on the floor, adding it to the pile he'd already gone through. The parchment paper it was drawn on curled in on itself as it hit the ground, hiding from his sight as if the faded ink could sense his frustration.

Levi frowned down at them. _Useless_. They were maps of Stohess that he'd borrowed from the Corps' archives- helpful for getting the basic layout of the city, but lacking in the details he'd been hoping to find. And he needed those details, the seemingly unimportant places that had been deemed unworthy of being marked. Because if Annie Leonhardt was still in the city, he'd bet a Titan's weight in tea that she was hiding somewhere off the grid.

After all, that’s what he would do.

Running a hand through his hair in irritation, he began to flip back through the pile, trying to find the map that would be least unhelpful. It was a tedious exercise, but he wanted to devise a way for them to search the city that would be both expeditious and meticulous.

And he also sorely needed a distraction from his thoughts of Mikasa Ackerman.

The way she'd quivered when he'd wrapped his arm around her... no matter what she said to the contrary, her reaction told him that she still wanted him physically. Which was bad, considering he was worked up as it was and his emotions were clouding his judgment.

He thought back to the man on the porch. He shouldn't have attacked him; it would have been wiser to just let the piece of trash walk away. But when he'd dared to call Mikasa such vile things... Levi had seen red, and the need to make him pay for his words had been too great. Breaking a few of the pig's worthless ribs had been _oh_ so satisfying, albeit unnecessary. Mikasa was a soldier, not some girl whose honor needed defending. And yet Levi was finding it increasingly difficult not to blur the line between their fake story and his real feelings.

So if sifting through outdated maps of Stohess would help take the edge off, then so be it.

He was still pouring over the maps when the door to their room opened and Mikasa stepped through. Levi was facing away from her, but he didn’t need to see her to know that showering had done little to ease the tension from her muscles. He could sense it from across the room, could feel it hanging in the air between them.

He remembered the way she'd looked at him earlier, the way she'd squirmed beneath his gaze. No doubt she was still worked up about their sleeping arrangements.

Well, he could give her one less thing to fret about. “I’ll sleep in the chair,” he said, keeping his back to her as he crouched down and began putting the maps in an orderly stack. He could continue when his insomnia woke him up, but for now he was done. His attention was shot to shit anyway.

“No.” Mikasa answered abruptly, uttering the one monosyllabic word he’d been least expecting to hear.

His fingers froze on the maps. _No?_ Genuinely surprised, he glanced over at her.

She was still standing by the door, towel folded in her arms, the ends of her hair still damp, dark eyes watching him impassively. 

Levi frowned, perplexed. What- did she intend to give him the bed and sleep in the chair herself? Maybe she thought that she owed him for something. Or maybe she was trying to show some stupid form of deference to his rank.

He scoffed at the thought. Now _that_ would certainly be a first. "Listen, Ackerman-"

“You’re just as tired as I am, Heichou, and there’s room enough for us both.” She tucked an inky lock of hair behind her ear, her gaze dropping. “And it’s not as if we haven’t slept in the same bed before,” she added without looking up. She seemed particularly absorbed by the grain of the wooden floor.

 _I don’t recall much sleeping_ , he mused, but he bit back the words, knowing that they would only start a fight that would probably end with her fist in his face- an experience he didn’t care to relive.

Besides, she was right. They’d had a tiringly long day and tomorrow would only bring more of the same. They both needed their wits about them, and a few hours of sleep in a bed would bring more rest than a few uncomfortable hours spent in a chair.

He nodded. “Fine, then. If you’re sure.”

“I am.”

But the awkward silence said otherwise, so Levi grabbed a towel and change of clothes and headed for the door, careful not to so much as brush up against her as he passed by. “I’ll be back in a while,” he said.

A while turned out to be longer than planned. The second the hot water hit his skin, Levi forget all sense of urgency. He took his time in the shower, letting the emotions of the day swirl down the drain with the water and dirt and soap. It felt good to clear his head, to regain the numbing calmness that shielded him from the pain and anger and guilt that were never far away. It was a pity that he had to shun the good with the bad, but it was a trade he was willing to make. The numbness protected him from the truths he didn’t want to face.

Out of the shower, he swiped a hand over the mirror, clearing the steam away. He raked a hand through his tousled hair, flipping his bangs out of his eyes as he took a good look at himself. It had been a while since he'd last seen his reflection- not that it mattered to him. Despite the painstaking effort he put into maintaining a clean, well-groomed appearance, he didn't much care for admiring the finished product. All he saw was the pain and emptiness that dwelt beneath it anyway.

But no one else saw that fragility. To the rest of the world he was _Captain Levi_ \- strong, hard, invincible. Not a man who had quietly put himself back together so many times he'd forgotten what it felt like to not be broken. Even his subordinates- the people who fought and died beside him- didn't see him that way. They bought into the image, believed in the lie.

And he did nothing to prove them wrong. Because if they believed he didn't care, it was easier to pretend he really didn't. And that was a good thing.

Because caring about people didn't keep them alive. Caring just meant that it hurt more when he lost them, when he failed to protect them.

He'd learned years ago that being a leader meant you couldn't wear your emotions on your sleeve, couldn't let them have any sway over you, especially not in the field. Cold, logical decisions were the best ones- the safest ones.

It was why he never let anyone get too close to him; better that they see only his armor, not the fractures concealed beneath its tough exterior.

_Better to be respected than loved._

Kenny had used to say that all the time, had nearly knocked his teeth down his throat on multiple occasions to beat that into him. Unorthodox teaching methods, perhaps, but he'd been right all the same.

 _The only worthwhile piece of advice you ever gave me, Kenny,_ he mused as he turned away from the mirror and toweled himself off.  

When he did finally return to their room, Mikasa was curled up under the sheets, sleeping. He closed the door softly so as not to wake her and then leaned back against it, regarding her silently. He watched her chest rise and fall in steady monotony, watched the way her hand curled and uncurled on the pillow beside her head. She looked small and feminine, her porcelain features almost gossamer in the moonlight.

Levi frowned, thinking of the traumatic life she’d led, of the horrors she’d witnessed, tried to reconcile that existence with the girl sleeping so soundly on the bed.

It didn’t seem right. The ugliness of life should have been reserved for people like him, people who came from the gutters and lived in the shadows. Not for pretty little girls with their whole lives ahead of them. Not for her.

But life wasn’t kind or fair or just. It wasn’t even certain. The only thing anyone could be sure of was that life always ended. And Levi had seen that promise realized more times than he cared to remember.

He swallowed, feeling the numbness he’d regained only minutes ago receding. It never seemed to last anymore, not since the day she’d kissed him and forced him to remember what it felt like to be human. She’d stripped him of his numbing safety, just as he’d stripped her of her scarf. He'd never expected that anyone would ever get close enough to do that, but now it seemed almost inevitable that _she_ had. She was the girl worth a hundred soldiers, after all, one of the only people that could ever understand the burden that came with a title like that.

Maybe that was why he’d always been drawn to her, even from the first time he’d seen her- the day of the trial when her murderous glare had been fixed on him as he’d beaten Jaeger to a bloody pulp. Because while everyone else looked at him with admiration and respect and hung onto his words like they were some fucking gospel, she treated him as an equal. She didn't stare at him with the wide-eyed infatuation of hero-worship, didn't place him high on some pedestal. No, Mikasa Ackerman- even when it had been through clenched teeth and simmering hatred- viewed him as just another person, as someone who could make mistakes. She didn’t follow him blindly and she wasn’t afraid to stand up to him.

And for that he’d always respected her, even when he'd been so pissed at her for disobeying him that he could've spit nails.

But even that was worth it, because on the rare occasion when she _did_ heed his command, it meant something: it meant that she believed in his leadership, that she trusted him enough to follow his orders. And although he'd never tell her- _not in a million fucking years_ \- having her trust mattered to him a hell of a lot.

No wonder he hadn’t stood a chance when she’d kissed him that day, when she'd all but begged him to fuck away her pain. He’d been burning for her long before then. He just hadn’t ever acknowledged it.

And now he couldn't shake her.

Sighing, Levi stepped away from the door, tearing his gaze from her sleeping form. Walking on silent feet to the chair by the window, he took the time to precisely fold his uniform and towel before he slipped into bed. Mikasa was turned away from him, and he was careful to put a respectful amount of space between them. He remembered the nights she’d stayed in his bed, felt the same distance now that he had then. It shouldn’t bother him, but it did.

He’d rediscovered that he had a heart just in time to feel it breaking.

Shaking his head at the poetic irony of it, Levi closed his eyes. Moments later, his exhaustion caught up with him and he fell into dreams of things that would never be.

 

**

Mikasa’s eyes fluttered open slowly, sleep still clinging to her. The moon was high in the nighttime sky and all was quiet on the streets outside. She blinked, her eyes adjusting slowly to the darkness. There was a breeze blowing in from where the window was cracked open, but the cold air didn't reach her beneath the covers. She felt warm and relaxed, senses still hazy from whatever dream she'd been pulled out of.

She sighed, wondering what had woken her, when she realized her head wasn’t resting on her pillow.

It was resting on Levi’s chest.

She was pressed against him, one arm thrown lazily over his torso, and she could feel one of his arms wrapped around her shoulders, holding her gently.

She stilled, not even daring to breathe as a few interminable seconds ticked by.

Trying to be as quiet as possible, Mikasa craned her neck and looked up at him, exhaling in relief when she realized he was sleeping.

Her eyes lingered on his face, taking in his features in a way she wasn’t free to do while he was awake. The deep creases of his frown lines were gone, as well as the tension always so present around his mouth and eyes. He looked younger, untroubled.

Mikasa couldn’t recall a time she’d ever seen him so at peace. Levi wore his burdens like she’d worn her scarf- so constantly they’d become a part of him, sewn into his very marrow.

She felt a pang of sadness for him, deep and acute, a mirror of her own. She didn’t know much about his past, but she knew he’d suffered as much as she had, maybe more. His pain had transformed into hardness, but she’d seen slivers of vulnerability creep into his eyes of steel from time to time, even though she’d chosen to ignore them whenever they surfaced.

All because she’d wanted so badly to hate him.

And yet she never really had.

She’d resented him- yes- but only because she saw so much of herself in him.

She wanted to be like Eren: hopeful, passionate, able to see the best in people, full of indomitable optimism that everything would work out in the end.

But she wasn’t like that. She wasn’t like that at all.

Levi could be callous and cold and say all the wrong things, but Mikasa measured up exactly the same. And yet she’d excused her own faults and held him accountable for his when really neither of them was to blame. Levi was a product of the cruel world in which they lived, just as she was, a survivor shaped by all the pain he’d endured.

In another life, in another time, maybe they would have been different.

 _Maybe I would have even seen him smile_.

For a fleeting moment, Mikasa pretended that the story was real: they were together, and she was a contented wife curled up next to a husband who loved her. Their frown lines were laugh lines and their scars were only physical. They had friends. They had family. They had each other.

They were happy.

She could almost taste the sweetness of that life on her tongue, could almost lose herself in it, and yet she let it turn to ashes in her mouth. As much as she longed to indulge that impossible fantasy, dwelling on what ifs was fruitless. That halcyon life was just a picture in her head- a dream- and she’d seen enough horrors in the waking world to know that dreams weren’t real.

Nightmares were.

Levi shifted in his sleep, jerking her from her reverie. She knew she should move, but she didn’t- not right away. Instead she closed her eyes and relaxed into him even more, enjoying the feel of his arm around her, of his closeness. She felt safe, and as she listened to the sound of his heart beating where her ear was pressed against his chest, she realized there was nowhere else she wanted to be, no one else she wanted to be with.

Not even Eren.

She swallowed against the heavy emotions that came rushing in like the tide, blinked back the tears that sprang to her eyes as she finally realized just how deeply she needed her Captain, how much she…

 _No. Don’t even think it. I can’t afford to feel this way- not now, not ever_.

Everyone she’d ever felt that way about was dead: her parents, Eren’s parents, Armin…she’d even lost Eren twice, though he’d come back to her. But she attributed that to the fact that he was more than human.

And Levi was _only_ human.

She could never risk it. Better to let her heart turn to stone than to feel it shatter. She couldn’t endure it again.

As long as she kept her distance, he would be safe. Safe from her and safe from all the tragedy and death she brought with her.

And she needed him to be safe.

Sighing, Mikasa reluctantly scooted away from him, gently unwrapping his arm from her shoulders. He didn’t stir, though his mouth pulled down in the tiniest of frowns.

She rolled onto her side and put her back to him, ignoring how much she already missed his warmth.

She fell back asleep wishing she were still in his arms.

 

**

The day was a long and frustratingly ineffective one, and by the time the late afternoon sun was dipping towards the walls of the city, they still had nothing to show for their efforts. They’d found not so much as a trace of Annie anywhere- nary a whisper- despite the calculated, detailed way they’d combed the city.

"This girl is a fucking cockroach," Levi had muttered at one point, and after straining her eyes all day searching for her, Mikasa was inclined to agree with him. She began to imagine Annie scuttling away as they rounded each corner, darting into the dark, gloomy pockets of Stohess every time they got too close to catching a glimpse of her.

 _Stohess_. Being back in the city had soured her mood considerably, and not just because the last time she’d been here Annie and Eren had wracked up a sickening body count and torn apart entire blocks. _That_ wreckage had been rebuilt, the carnage swept away under newly laid brick and concrete and stone- a city remade, fashioned on a bed of bones.

As much as that bothered her, the place itself bothered her more. Everywhere she looked she saw walls- large, imposing, _stifling_ walls. They were more than just physical barriers; they were humanity's self-imposed prison, meant for protection but really just a cage for people that were slaves to their fears. There was no real freedom in Stohess.

Never had Mikasa wished so acutely to be back in her childhood home, deep in the forest, surrounded by trees and the smell of pine and a burning fire, far from walls of any kind.

On top of how suffocated she felt, she was also beginning to feel paranoid. It seemed like every time they turned down another street, she saw a flash of blonde hair, a peek of 3DMG from beneath a jacket. Everyone looked suspicious- the blind woman knitting on the sidewalk and muttering under her breath, the man carrying a sack of potatoes (large enough for someone to hide in?) over his shoulder, the mother hushing a newborn, patting his frail back as he cried at her breast. She did double takes on all of them, sure that somewhere she’d spy a disguise.

To make matters worse, she had started to feel the unsettling sensation of eyes on her back, of someone watching them. At first she dismissed it, thinking it was just stress and fatigue rattling her composure, but the feeling didn’t go away. If anything, it got worse, her instincts insisting that something was amiss. And Mikasa trusted her instincts: they were sharply honed and rarely wrong.

She glanced over at Levi. His gait was one of nonchalant ease, his steps evenly paced and unhurried. There was no discernible strain in his limbs, no tightness around his face. He looked like a man enjoying a destinationless stroll. If he had any similar suspicions, he was hiding them well.

She said nothing for a few more blocks, trying to determine on her own whether the threat was real or imagined. But she had never been followed before and she had no idea what to look for. She was used to confrontation, not cat and mouse games.

Finally, when her nerves were about ready to snap, she voiced her unease. “Heichou, I think someone is following us.”

To her surprise, Levi nodded grimly. “Someone is. A girl, approaching from our seven o’clock, wearing a hood.”

Her mouth went dry. It took an immense amount of willpower not to turn around and seek her out. “Do you think it’s Annie?”

His lips twitched at her name. “There’s no way of knowing, not from this distance.”

Mikasa glanced about her, scanning the immediate vicinity, trying to be surreptitious about it. _Where are you, Annie?_ Her muscles were as taut as a drawn arrow poised to fly. She didn’t like the idea of being hunted; defense had never been her strong point. Her fingers inched towards the knife at her belt. “Should we confront her?”

Levi shook his head without stopping or looking at her. “Not here. We need to draw her out of the crowd.” And without another word he picked up the pace, weaving through the throng of people. Even though he moved fast and fluidly down the street, weaving around groups of pedestrians, Mikasa had no trouble keeping pace with him. It wasn't the first time she'd shadowed him on a mission, and reacting to his movements had largely become second nature to her. He moved, she moved.

But Mikasa was beginning to wonder if the girl following them would be able to do the same. Levi's speed and erratic movements seemed to be a tactical way to shake a stalker, not draw them out.

Finally, they broke away from the crowd. Levi walked a few paces to the left until they were standing at the mouth of a long alley that stretched between their current thoroughfare and the adjacent one. He didn't say anything- just pulled her close and murmured "count until I tell you to stop" in her ear. She did, not quite understanding the point of that or why they were standing where they were clearly visible. But when she saw him looking over her shoulder, his eyes scanning the street behind them, it suddenly made sense.

"You're toying with her," she breathed.

His eyes kept scanning. "Yes."

It was a clever tactic, she had to admit. Make their stalker think that they were trying to shake her, lead her on a bit of a chase, and then wait until she caught up too quickly and turn the tables on her. Having her count was just a mindless distraction, a way to erase the background chatter and focus in on the task at hand.

Methodical, calculated, planned. _He's done this before_ , she thought, almost certain of it. She wondered who had been on the receiving end of his trap the last time.

Suddenly his lips pulled up into a ghost of a sneer. "Gotcha." He gave a jerky nod.  "Into the alley. Go."

Mikasa did as he said, flattening herself against the alley wall, Levi copying her moments later. Both of them drew their knives and waited, silent and still.

“Come on,” Levi muttered under his breath. “Take the bait.”

No sooner had he said the words then their would-be stalker rounded the corner.

They were on her in a heartbeat. Mikasa grabbed her left arm, Levi her right, and they hauled her up, slamming her against the wall. Mikasa checked her for weapons- there was a small dagger in her belt but surprisingly nothing else- and then she stepped back as Levi pressed the edge of his blade to the girl's throat, exerting just enough pressure to break skin. A trickle of blood ran down her neck.

The girl gasped beneath the cowl of her hood as her hands flew to Levi’s, yanking at them. “Let go,” she wheezed in a voice that was decidedly _not_ Annie’s.

Mikasa ground her teeth together in frustration. All of that effort, wasted on a girl who wasn't their quarry.

Levi seemed to share her feelings. His eyes narrowed dangerously. “You're in no position to make demands. Tell us who you are and why you were following us.” He pressed the tip of his blade harder against her throat. “Talk. Now.” He reached up and yanked her hood down.

And jerked back as if burned, instantly releasing her. The blood drained from his face as he stared at the girl in unabashed surprise. _“Serena?”_ He breathed.

Mikasa frowned in confusion, her eyes darting uncertainly between the two of them. _Serena?_ _  
_

The girl clutched at her neck, wiping away the stray drops of blood. “It’s nice to see you too, Levi,” she said, her voice shaking slightly.

Mikasa stared as Serena regained her composure. Without the hood, it was easy to see how striking she was: eyes like emeralds, aquiline features, smooth skin, willowy limbs, the hue of red hair peeking out from the bun on top of her head.

"What the hell are you doing in Stohess?" Levi asked, voice still thick with disbelief.

The emerald eyes flashed. "I _live_ here, Levi," she said as she adjusted her clothing. "A lot has changed since we last saw each other, including my address." She sighed, straightening up, and for the first time, her gaze flickered to Mikasa. She smiled, her lips curling up apologetically. "Since Levi's manners are as lax as ever-" she began, ignoring the Captain's derisive snort "-please let me introduce myself. I'm Serena."

Mikasa wasn’t in the mood to play nice. “Being polite now doesn't change the fact that you were following us.” She made sure the other girl had a good view of the knife in her hand, felt a rewarding prickle of satisfaction when she saw her green eyes latch onto it. Mikasa lowered her voice. "If you're not a stranger and you didn't mean us any harm, why the charade?"

“I- I needed to be sure first," Serena murmured warily, eyes still on Mikasa's knife. She shifted uncertainly. "You can never be too careful."

Levi stepped between them. “Stand down, Ackerman. Serena’s not a threat.”

The knife went limp in her hand as her grip faltered. The way he said her name- the familiar way it rolled off his tongue like he’d spoken it a thousand times… _He more than knows her_ , Mikasa realized. _He trusts her._ An unpleasant knot coiled in her stomach as she imagined the possible connections between the pretty redhead and her Captain.

A sudden noise had them all looking towards the mouth of the alley, backs tense, bodies alert. But the noise turned out to be a stray dog passing by and a group of skinny children running after him, their snickers and laughter carrying back to them even after they were out of sight.

Mikasa relaxed slightly and sheathed her weapon.

A crinkle appeared in the middle of Serena’s porcelain brow. “Maybe we can continue this back at my shop?” She suggested. “An alley is not the place to have a conversation one doesn’t wish to be overheard.”

Levi nodded, and Serena threw Mikasa an encouraging smile before she put her hood back up and headed for the street.

Mikasa didn't move. She stared at Levi, waiting for some kind of an explanation.

But he only sighed. "Don't give me that look, Ackerman. Quit growing roots and come along. We'd be calling it a day anyway; we're not going to find Annie in the dark." And with that, he walked off after Serena.

Mikasa had no choice but to follow.

 

**

Levi let his gaze wander around the room, his curiosity more than aroused.

_First I see Serena again, and now this._

She’d always had a fondness for reinventing herself- it was hard to forget any of Serena’s colorful personas- but this latest identity was eccentric even for her. Her shop was labeled as an apothecary, though the inside bespoke a more… _exotic_ inventory. The back room she’d ushered them into was cluttered with trinkets and makeshift shrines, candles and incense burning in every nook and cranny. Heavy tapestries lined the floors and walls, and stacks of dusty books were piled ten high at the base of an overcrowded bookshelf. A few colorful scarves were thrown haphazardly over the back of a rocking chair, and to top it off, a turban was perched on an ornate wooden table, resting beside a crystal ball.

He could only imagine what Mikasa was thinking.

She was standing in front of a small altar, brow furrowed as she warily inspected the skull that sat in its center. She must have felt his eyes on her because she glanced over at him, her dark eyes brimming with questions he sorely hoped she wouldn’t ask.

Luckily for him, Serena chose that moment to reappear, sweeping into the room with a teakettle and three cups tucked beneath her arms.

She’d freed her mane of hair from its constraints, and now a cascade of red curls tumbled down her back, insanely bright against the simple black dress she wore.

She set the kettle down on the table and gestured at the chairs. “Please sit. You two are making my nerves fry as it is. I don’t need you pacing and wearing holes in the floor.”

Levi pulled out a chair and sat down, noticing that Mikasa waited until he did before joining them, clearly uncomfortable. But Levi didn’t so much as look at her; Serena was much too sharp for him to risk it. She had always had an uncanny ability for reading people, an intuitive gift that had no doubt fostered the creation of this newest reincarnation.

So he resolutely ignored Mikasa and instead took a sip of tea. It was hot and strong, brewed with a heavy hand just the way he liked. He set it back down, saying nothing.

But Serena smiled, green eyes sparkling. “I remembered how you like it,” she said. She turned to Mikasa. “He was always so particular about his tea. If I got it wrong, he’d make me redo it or just brew it himself." She sighed. "Of course, he was that way about everything- not just tea." She arched a brow. "Is he still that impossible?”

Apparently his ignoring her had sparked her anger, because she answered with a flat: “All the time.”

Serena laughed. “Some things never change.”

Levi stifled his irritation with another sip of tea. “And some things _do_ change,” he said as he placed his cup down with particular care. He gestured towards her. “Like the color of your hair, for one, and your profession.” He cocked a brow. “Just what exactly are you calling yourself these days, anyway?”

Serena didn’t even bat an eyelash. “Madame Gringla, Reader of Fortunes.”

He felt rather than saw Mikasa stiffen next to him. And once again, he ignored her.

“I imagine she’ll have a very short shelf life,” he said dryly. "Seeing as you don't, in fact, have psychic abilities."

But Serena shrugged dismissively. “So you say. But people pay dearly for what they believe is my second sight. I may not have _the touch_ , but I am very good at stringing together a city’s secrets and whispers and gossip. I know more than any real psychic could ever hope to see.”

Levi knew better than to question the pride in her voice; he knew it wasn’t misplaced. How many times had he gone to her for information on his enemies when he’d lived in the underground? She’d never once failed him.

It gave him an idea.

“You used to,” he said, intentionally trying to provoke her. “But now...?" He shrugged. "For all I know you've lost your edge."

She pouted indignantly. "I most certainly have not."

He hid a smirk. _It's still so easy to ruffle your feathers, Serena._ "Then prove it. Do you know why we’re here?”

She answered almost too readily. “You’re looking for Annie Leonhardt.”

Mikasa placed her tea down with a little too much force on the table. “How do you know that?” She asked quietly, quickly recovering from her surprise.

Serena rolled her eyes. “Because it’s obvious. You both show up here, days after she escapes, out of uniform but still exuding military bearing. Even if I hadn’t recognized Levi, I would’ve known you were both in the Corps- the way you carry yourselves, the way you were scanning the streets… Even your functional choice of civilian clothes gives you away. And definitely the Corps, mind you- you’re both too sharp for the Guard and not arrogant enough for the Police. So all of that- plus the fact that your Commander made no overt move to recapture the Leonhardt girl- meant that he’d opted for an undercover detail. He would send in a small tactical team- the two of you, in this case- to retrieve her without causing a scene and without alerting her to his motives. Honestly, anyone could put the pieces together.”

The admiration Levi expected to hear from Mikasa never came. Instead, she replied evenly: “If you know so much about us, surely you know something useful about our target. Her whereabouts, for example?”

He should have known that Serena wouldn’t rattle her. Even caught off guard, his brat was nearly unshakable. _Well played, Mikasa._

Apparently Serena thought so too. She leaned back in her chair and ran a hand through her impressive head of hair, regarding Mikasa silently. Levi could see the respect in her green eyes. Whatever test she’d employed, Mikasa had passed.

“I don’t know where she is, but I know where she will be at midday tomorrow.”

“Where?” Mikasa asked at the same moment he did.

“Down by the docks. One of the boys in the Police supposedly had a thing for your Titan girl, and rumor has it that his family is helping smuggle her out of the city on a cargo boat. This time tomorrow, she’ll be beyond your reach.”

“Not if we stop her from leaving,” Mikasa said, pushing her chair back. She stood up. “Heichou.”

Levi looked up at her, finally giving her his attention. He knew what she was thinking, and even though part of him agreed with her, they had to be reasonable. “We can’t get there tonight, Mikasa; it’s too far and neither of us has enough energy to make it there. We’ll leave first thing in the morning.”

“We should go now,” she argued, hands clenching into fists. “We can rest after we have Annie in custody.”

Why was she always so stubborn? “Ackerman, the docks are a five-mile walk from here, and getting there means going through some neighborhoods I wouldn’t pass through during the day let alone in the middle of the bloody night. We’re waiting.”

She gave him a look that was all daggers and defiance. “Heichou-”

Levi stood abruptly and stepped in close, lowering his voice to an admonitory whisper. “Do you remember what I said before we left for Stohess?” His eyes bored into hers, piercing her. “Do you?”

She swallowed. “Yes,” she said, the fight in her eyes dimming. “I remember.”

Levi took a deep breath. “Good. I sincerely hope you do. Because I also meant what I said about us getting back in one piece.”

He saw her throat working. “I know, Heichou.” There was no anger left in her eyes as she met his gaze. “I just…”

He squeezed her hand, a brief gesture that was meant to be innocent but made her eyes darken and his breath catch. He hastily pulled away. “We’ll leave for the docks in the morning,” he said. He sat back down and picked up his tea, cursing himself for forgetting that they had an audience. The tea was cooling, but he took a long drag of it before looking at Serena, dreading the knowing look she'd no doubt be giving him.

Sure enough, when he did look up she was watching him closely, curiosity brimming in her emerald eyes. She gave him a reprieve, however, as she glanced over at Mikasa, her lips pulling up in a knowing smile.

Where Serena's mental prowess had failed to intimidate her, her smile seemed to disarm her. Mikasa blushed and looked towards the door. "Excuse me," she murmured, "but I think the incense is giving me a headache. I need some fresh air." She paused, then added: "If that's okay, Heichou?"

"Fine."

She was out of the room before he could say anything else.

And then he was alone with the deafening silence of Serena's curious eyes.

“What?” He finally snapped.

“You know what, Levi.” Serena pursed her lips, not letting him get away with his sullen silence. “How long?”

He grimaced. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he muttered.

“Liar.” She sighed, crossing her legs as she leaned back in her chair. She frowned. “You’ll regret it, you know. Not telling her.”

He stared down at his tea, letting his bangs hide his eyes. “I’m already a fucking mess of regrets, Serena. What’s one more?” He was trying for indifference, but the sarcastic bite of his words rang hollow even to his own ears and he knew she wouldn’t fall for his act. He couldn’t fool her, not after everything they’d been through. She knew him too well.

Her frown deepened. “It’s everything when it’s the one thing that actually matters. I would know.” An old pain settled into her features. “I never told Farlan how I felt,” she said quietly, her green eyes drifting out of focus. “Even when he, you, and Isabel got picked up by Erwin Smith. I let him leave and I never said anything, all because I was too afraid of what he would say in return. And then he never came back.” She gave him a hauntingly direct look. “Mikasa deserves to know, Levi. You can’t be selfish with love; that’s not how it works. The whole point is to give, and that includes the truth.”

Levi glanced up at her, frowning at the sadness he saw in her eyes.

Her finger trailed slowly around the rim of her cup before she let it still on the table. “If I had another chance, I’d tell him. Even if he didn't feel the same, at least he would have known how _I_ felt.” Her brow furrowed in pain. "Take my advice, Levi: _tell her how you feel_. Don't make the same mistake I did."

Levi swallowed hard against the lump in his throat. The years had fallen away as she spoke, and he was back in the underground with his long-dead friends, watching a goofy smile spread across Isabel's face and listening to Farlan's booming laugh as they recounted all the trouble they'd caused that day. It still cut him up to think about them, even after all this time. Probably always would. And seeing Serena so sad only made it worse.

She'd only reopened old wounds in the hope of helping him, Levi knew, but she was wrong about Mikasa. If Serena had told Farlan how she'd felt, it would've made his friend the happiest man alive. But Mikasa would never react that way, and so he would never burden her with the truth.

Like always, he'd cope and get by. Alone.

“Farlan did love you,” he said at length.

Serena gave him a sad smile. "I'll never really know that, will I?" She stood up, signaling an end to the conversation.

Levi understood; the past was best left buried with the dead. And yet he couldn’t keep himself from asking, “Have you seen anyone else from the underground since you left?”

He certainly hadn't. After he'd committed himself to the Survey Corps, he'd never looked back, never gone back.

She shook her head. “No one. But you and I both know how hard it is to break free of that place. I’d wager most of the people we knew never left.”

He nodded listlessly. It was true enough. After all, a part of him never had. The innocence he'd lost would always be entombed there, choked down beneath the oppression and poverty he worked so hard to distance himself from now. Pieces of the better man he might have been, trampled underfoot like dirt.

He stood up, his muscles protesting the sudden action. It would have been easy to stay- he'd always enjoyed Serena's company, even the times they'd just sat in silence together- but he needed to leave. And he needed to make sure Mikasa hadn't decided to march down to the docks on her own. He wouldn't put it past her.

Serena walked over to him, sensing his impending goodbye. Before he could protest, she reached out and hugged him, her slim arms wrapping around his neck. "Don't be a stranger, Levi," she said, squeezing him tightly. "Too many of us are gone already." She pulled back, her green eyes impassioned as they searched his. "Come back and see me before you leave Stohess, okay? You owe me a proper visit and I'd like the chance to make amends with Mikasa. I don't think she likes me much." Her lips curved up in an impish smile. "Probably because she thinks we were involved."

Levi blanched. "What? Don't be ridiculous." The only thing more laughable than imagining him and Serena together was imagining that Mikasa would care either way.

Serena sighed and ruffled his hair- something only she could get away with.  "You're still such an idiot."

He responded with an equally childish tug of her hair. "Takes one to know one," he countered.

She walked him to the door and politely reminded him that if he left without coming to visit she'd find him and curse him with every hex Madame Gringla knew.

Levi shook his head as she closed the door behind him. _And she says that I'm the one who needs to work on my people skills._ Right.

He spotted Mikasa almost immediately, his eyes homing in on her without him telling them to. She was standing across the street with her back to him, watching the sun disappear below the city walls.

He stood there mutely for a minute, letting her enjoy the sunset, not wanting to disturb her. 

But finally he did. "Oi, Ackerman," he called, getting her attention. "Let's go."

 

**

They hadn’t spoken the rest of the way back. Levi only broke the silence to mutter a hello to Joe, and their taciturn moods had persisted once they’d gotten to their room.

Levi was by the window, going through a handful of maps he’d already studied, narrowing down his search area based on Serena’s information.

Mikasa was trying- unsuccessfully- to get out of her civilian clothes, her hands fumbling with the buttons on her back. It was ridiculous, really; she could get in and out of her harnesses and buckles in a matter of minutes, but a tiny pearl button on the back collar of her shirt was too much for her. It was the type of tiny clasp made for women who put time and care in their appearance- women with graceful, patient fingers. Not for soldiers like her who favored practical ease.

She was about to rip the thing off in frustration when she felt a pair of cool fingertips on the nape of her neck.

“Hold still.”

She did, mostly because her whole body had frozen at his touch. It was nothing more than the rasp of his fingers against her skin and she could already feel her pulse start to skitter. She bit the inside of her cheek, even as she dropped her arms and moved her hair away from her neck to give him better access.

Levi unhooked the button, his fingers lingering just a fraction too long on her newly exposed skin.

She wondered if he’d ever touched Serena like this, if he’d ever helped her out of her clothes. She wished he would have said something- anything- about their relationship, but he hadn’t. And she was dying to know.

“Were you and Serena together?” She asked before her courage could desert her.

It was his turn to freeze. “Why would you ask me that?” He asked after a long pause, his voice low.

Now she was wishing she hadn’t. But she couldn’t take the words back, so she kept her chin high and answered him, grateful that her back was to him. “Because you’re taking her word about Annie, and I want to know why you feel you can trust her. It seemed like a reasonable enough question to ask.” And her answer sounded reasonable enough to be believable. Or so she hoped.

His fingers trailed down her spine, pausing briefly in the curve of her lower back before he let them fall away from her. “Because,” he said slowly, “Serena is one of my oldest friends and I know her extremely well. Trust _me_ when I say you can trust _her._ ”

She shook off the feel of his fingers. “Friend?” The word was out of her mouth before she could catch it, sailing past her lips like a reflex. Her cheeks started to get uncomfortably warm as she felt his eyes on her. _Don’t read into it. Don’t understand me._

But he was older and wiser and much too perceptive. Of course he understood. And yet all he said was: “I believe I mentioned that already.”

Mikasa seethed, her temper flaring. She hated how he could answer her question without telling her anything. Her anger getting the better of her, she spun around and glared at him. “Why do you do that?”

He sighed, a huff of annoyance. “Do what?”

“Shut everyone out.” _Including me._ He'd always been distant, even when they'd been sleeping together.

He narrowed his eyes and suddenly his hands were gripping her waist and drawing her close.

Startled, her hands latched on to his, trying to loosen his grip. “Heichou, what-”

He let his fingers tighten, pinching her skin through the fabric of her shirt and reminding her just how good the roughness of his touch felt. She trembled in response, even as she continued to try and pry his hands away.

After a moment he released her, stepping back, the desire in his eyes tempered only by smugness. He’d expected her reaction and she’d delivered.

“You say I shut everyone out, but I’m not the only one. Take a look in the fucking mirror, Mikasa, and then judge me if you still have the stomach for it.”

She opened her mouth, shut it, tried to think of some biting retort to throw back at him. But for the first time she could remember, she couldn’t think of anything to say.

 _Because he’s right._ _You know he’s right._ She'd kept him at a distance, too, had never really let him in. So why had she expected him to act any differently in return?

They stared at each other in silence for a protracted moment before Levi finally shook his head. He uttered a long exhale. “Serena and I were never romantic, Mikasa," he said as his guarded eyes held hers. "We were almost like family once, a long time ago, but there was never anything more between us.”

Mikasa couldn't decipher the expression on his face, but something about it made her feel naked and exposed- like he could see the truths she kept trapped behind her teeth.

Levi closed the distance between them once more, moving in so close that she could feel the heat radiating in the scant space between them.

"There," he murmured as he brushed a stray strand of hair from her face. His callused thumb skimmed her jaw as he drew his hand back. "I've been honest with you, now be honest with me: why did you really want to know?"

Mikasa felt the unsteady thump of her heart like a drum in her chest. _Because I..._

The words lodged in her throat like cement, weighted down beneath the frankness of his gaze. She bided her time, answering only when she was sure she was in control of her voice. "You said to leave my feelings behind, Heichou, that Annie was our first priority. I want to stay true to that." She licked her lips, continuing on before she lost her nerve. "But after we get back, ask me again."

His eyes widened just enough for her to know her answer had surprised him. He seemed to be as lost for words as she had been moments ago.

Finally, he nodded, a slow tilt of his head. "I will, Mikasa."

She felt the butterflies resume their fluttering in the pit of her stomach.

Tomorrow, one way or another, their mission would end.

And after that- _only_ after that- she might just risk telling Levi the truth.

 


	7. Transient

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween (:

Levi woke up during the night as he often did, startled awake by yet another vivid nightmare. _As if I don’t see enough people die in front of me_ , he thought tiredly as he pressed his hands to his eyes. _They have to die in my fucking dreams, too_.

And this time it had been _her_.

He turned his head, only to find Mikasa’s side of the bed empty, the covers thrown back. He sat up instantly, the grogginess receding as a bolt of alarm coursed through him that she had taken off while he’d been sleeping.

But she was still there, standing quietly by the window, her attention focused outward, and Levi felt his momentarily quickened pulse ebbing back to normal as he took in the reassuring sight of her.

The nighttime suited her well, he thought, noticing how the soft glow of moonlight that streamed through the old panes smoothed her hard edges and suffused her skin with its opaque gleam. She looked ethereal almost- bathed in a silvery shimmer- and if it hadn’t been for the hard expression twisting her delicate features, he might have doubted she was the same soldier who had a reputation for slicing through flesh. But the sullen frown was a dead giveaway.

Strange how it was almost endearing to him now.

He tossed the covers aside and stood up, padding over to her. One of the floorboards creaked beneath his weight, jarringly loud in the quiet stillness of their room, but Mikasa didn’t even flinch at the sound.

Levi stopped a few feet away from her, lingering in the shadows. She didn’t acknowledge him, but now he was close enough to notice the stiffness of her shoulders and the subtle shake in her hands. Her fingers were clenched into fists, turning her knuckles a starker white than usual. Something was bothering her.

He wondered if it had anything to do with their earlier conversation.

 _After we get back, ask me again_.

She could’ve meant any number of things, he knew, but he clung desperately to the improbable shred of hope that her answer had offered him. Levi would most assuredly ask her again. But not now. Even if he disregarded her request to wait until they got back, she was clearly agitated and he had no intention of making her more worked up than she already was.

He waited for her to say something, but she let the silence draw out and finally he gave in. “Mikasa.” No response. _Stubborn brat_. He tried again. “Oi. Ackerman, what’s wrong?”

She shook her head, still staring out the window. “Nothing. Nothing I can’t handle.”

He acted on impulse, reaching up and gripping her chin gently, turning her face towards his. When her dark eyes reluctantly met his they were stormy, troubled.

He could drown in those eyes- would- if only she’d let him. “I know you can handle it, Mikasa. You can handle anything. That’s not why I asked.” He released her chin. “Being strong doesn’t mean you have to be emotionally constipated." He exhaled tiredly. "You _are_ human, Ackerman, whether you’d like to acknowledge it or not.”

She hesitated. “I…” Her lips pressed together as she seemed to wage some internal debate, her facial muscles twitching with indecision. Levi wondered if her reticence was directed at him or if it had been so long since she'd expressed her feelings that she'd forgotten how to. He had a suspicion it was the latter.

When she did find the words, she spoke them without looking at him. “I couldn’t sleep. Too many nightmares.”

 _You’re not the only one_. He sighed. “Do you want to talk about it?” The words sounded awkward and stilted as he spoke them, as rusty as the hinges of an old machine long since put away and forgotten. He was out of practice showing concern and it showed.

But Mikasa didn’t seem to notice. “I…” She trailed off. “No. Yes.” Her brows knitted together, eyes searching his for answers to questions she hadn’t yet asked. Levi said nothing, just gave her time to collect her thoughts. He’d never been good at filling silences anyway. So he simply stood there beside her, staring out the window at the deadness of the predawn world as the minutes passed.

“Do you really think Serena is right?” She finally murmured. “Do you think Annie will be at the docks tomorrow?”

 _She’d better be_. “If she is, we’ll be waiting.” It was a circumspect answer, but he had nothing more reassuring to offer her.

Mikasa’s eyes darkened- a maelstrom of frozen wrath crackling in her onyx depths. “If she gets away, I’ll…” She took a deep breath, exhaled it slowly. When she spoke, the words tumbled from her lips like a confession. “I’ve never wanted to kill anyone as much as I want to kill her.”

Levi said nothing. He knew those weren’t empty words- not coming from her. Mikasa Ackerman had shed blood before, been raised in violence just like he had. He understood exactly how she felt because he’d been there himself, too many times to count. While others might only hear the brittle hatred lacing her voice, he heard the desperation it concealed. Desperation to find some cheap sliver of justice in a world where fairness didn’t exist. Desperation to right wrongs that could never be mended. Desperation to do _something_ to prove that life was more than just a shitfest of tragedies pieced together by brief periods of imagined peace.

Oh yes- he was all too familiar with that gnawing, debilitating emotion. He was better at hiding it now, but in his formative years it had torn at his insides like a pack of starving wolves, eating away at him until he’d been willing to sell his soul just to make it stop.

And he had.

His mother had been his breaking point. She’d been his world- his first and last hero- and she'd been ripped from his side even sooner than Mikasa's parents had been ripped from hers. After her death, everything had gone to shit. He'd met Kenny, and under his influence the darkness inside of him had taken wings and learned how to fly. He'd become the man he was today.

If his mother could see him now, she wouldn't even recognize him.

 _My proud little Levi_ , she used to tell him before tucking him in at night, her gentle eyes full of a love no one else had ever shown him, _never let anyone convince you that life is meaningless. Life is as good or bad as the choices you make, and you always have a choice. So you just keep smiling that beautiful smile and I’ll do the same._

But all the smiles in the world hadn’t saved her life.

Levi hadn’t cared about the consequences for avenging her, hadn’t cared about the cost to his own humanity; he’d been willing to pay that price. And yet when it was all said and done, vengeance hadn’t taken away the pain of losing her. It had just torn a deeper hole inside of him.

 _It will do the same to you, Mikasa_.

Still, he understood her desire to settle the score. After all, it was far less painful to drown in violence than it was to drown in sorrow. “I understand, Mikasa. Truly, ” he acknowledged once he finally escaped the mire of his own thoughts. “And I agree: Annie deserves to pay for what she did. But we have our orders. If possible, we take her alive.”

“I know what our orders are,” Mikasa said sharply. She turned away from the window, pacing the room in agitation like a bird fluttering aimlessly within the confines of its cage. Eventually she sat down on the edge of the bed, her shoulders slumping forward in defeat.

Levi watched her in silence, not knowing quite what to do. _Serena’s right. I’m not good at people_. It had never bothered him, until now.

If they hadn't been sharing a room, he would've given her some space to cool off, some time to be alone. But as dumb fucking luck would have it, he had nowhere to go. Cursing at his own inadequacy, he shuffled forward and awkwardly sat down next to her on the bed, the mattress dipping under his weight. He kept one hand on his leg and set the other down between them on the covers.

An easy silence settled between them, and Levi began to forget how shitty he was at comforting people. Mikasa seemed content with his quiet company, her stiff frame even relaxing somewhat, as if having him there was actually making her feel better.

He wasn't sure when it happened, but after a time he looked down to see that her hand was resting next to his, their fingers separated only by an inch of blanket. He considered closing the gap between them- wanted to- but in the end he left his hand where it was.

“Will you promise me something, Heichou?” Mikasa asked at last. Her voice was low.

He wanted to kick himself when the first word that ran through his head was _anything_. “That depends,” he tailored, thankful that the rational side of his brain was still functioning. “What is it you want me to promise you?”

She turned on the bed so she was square to him, facing him head on. Her eyes were full of cold resolution. “I won’t disobey you, Heichou; if we can take her alive, I’ll do my part. But after we learn everything we need to from Annie, I want you to let me kill her.”

 _What?_ It was one thing for her to say she wanted to kill Annie Leonhardt, but it was another thing entirely for her to act on those feelings. And here she was, inches away, asking him for permission. He held her gaze, searching for any sign that she wasn’t serious.

He couldn’t find any.

“I can’t promise you that,” he said slowly.

He could see the way she closed down in front of him at his denial, the way her lips clamped together in anger. _That's right_ _, Ackerman. Be mad at me._ He’d take her fists and fury any day over the mess she’d be if he allowed her to take her revenge.

 _You won’t come back from it, Mikasa_. And he cared too damn much to see her fall to pieces like that.

He sighed. “Revenge is satisfying in the moment, but in the end it will leave you broken and fix nothing. Killing her won’t be worth it. Believe me.”

She sat up taller on the bed, chin held defiantly high. “I’ve taken lives before and it hasn’t bothered me. Why should taking hers be any different?”

He heard the hardness in her voice, but it was a hardness born out of naïveté. _You think you’ve killed, Mikasa, but you haven’t tasted darkness like I have_. And he had to make her understand that, for her sake. “Because,” he reasoned, “you’ve never taken a life in cold blood before. You’ve killed to protect Eren, yourself, and your comrades, but those were all kill-or-be-killed situations. Revenge isn’t like that; it’s murder.”

“I’ll cope.”

“You won’t.” He exhaled. “Mikasa, I’ve killed in cold blood and believe me when I tell you: it will haunt you. You may be strong enough to hold yourself together, but those demons will never leave.” He looked down at the floor. “And I… I don’t want you to live with that kind of emptiness.”

That was true, but it was more than that. Much more. Levi grimaced, swallowing hard as he imagined her feeling like he did, cursed to live with the weight of guilt and regret on her shoulders until it carved out every piece of who she was and left her as hollow as him. He couldn't- _wouldn't_ \- let her become him. He closed his eyes. “I don’t want you to be like _me_ ,” he admitted huskily, his throat constricting around the words.

The quiet that followed was heavy, and Levi suddenly felt a burning need for air. He couldn't meet her eyes, was too afraid of what he'd see reflected in their dark depths. He stood up, intending to move away.

Almost reflexively, Mikasa clutched at his shirt, holding him back.

Levi froze. He glanced down at where her fingers were wrinkling the cotton, surprise clouding his features, then up at her, a question in his eyes.

Her own were as dark and deep as the sea, drawing him in. “You’re not empty, Heichou,” she murmured. “I know you’re not.”

His breath caught in his throat. He sank back down on the bed, speechless at the emotion he heard in her voice. She was looking at him, really _looking_ at him, and in that suspended moment he felt their differences melt away. They were no longer superior and subordinate, no longer two weary soldiers bonded together by their strength and the isolation that came with it. They were two people sharing a moment of clarity- each looking at the other and seeing what was really there.

Levi felt it in his gut, some unnameable emotion that stirred the pieces of the soul he thought he’d lost. “You…know?” His armor was splintering beneath her guileless eyes and he let it, for once allowing himself to be _Levi_ instead of _Captain_ , showing her the vulnerability he usually kept hidden. His voice cracked. “How can you possibly know that, Mikasa?”

Her sad smile nearly undid him. “Because we’re the same,” she said simply, a trace of the same vulnerability reflected in her eyes.

It wasn’t intentional or voluntary- it was more like the inevitable pull of gravity- but suddenly his hands were on her shoulders, pulling her closer, and then on her neck, in her hair, cupping her head, dragging her forward. He rested his forehead against hers, shuddering as he felt her hands tighten on his shirt, her fingers curling like leeches in the cotton and sucking away what feeble resistance he had left. Her breath fanned soft and warm on his cheek, an intoxicating caress, and he heard the soft, sweet catch in her throat as his lips moved over her ear, her jaw, her mouth, hovering just out of contact with her skin.

His own breath was an erratic staccato, his calm and collected demeanor shattered as he breathed in her nearness. He let one hand tangle in the silkiness of her hair while the other slipped down her back and slowly skimmed the line of her waist, his fingers dragging over the toned definition of her muscular body through the thin material of her camisole.

Mikasa leaned into his touch, her back arching. Her eyes were shut, long lashes fused together in a black, pretty fringe. She tilted her face down slightly and their lips brushed, sending a jolt of longing through his body and eliciting a jagged gasp from her.

The sound of her voice broke his control. The arm he had around her waist drew her closer until she was sitting astride his thigh, her chest flush to his, her warmth seeping into his bones. He buried his head in the crook of her neck, groaning as she shivered against him. Her responsiveness was making his body react in ways he couldn't ignore, but as badly as he wanted to fulfill his baser desires, he forced himself not to act on them. He needed her verbal approval first, to reassure him that she was okay but also because he desperately needed to hear her say the words  _I want you,_ to  _him_. Not to Jaeger or anyone else. To him.

His arms tightened around her. “If you don’t want this, say something now,” he ground out through gritted teeth. “Because I… _fuck_ …I don’t know if…” He exhaled shakily. “Tell me no while I’m still listening, Ackerman.”

He was already struggling to hold back. It had never been like this with anyone else; he’d never needed anyone the way he needed her.

“You still…want me?” Her voice was no more than a gossamer whisper.

He groaned. “Stupid brat," he bit out roughly. "I never _stopped_ wanting you.” He pressed his lips to the delicate skin of her neck, not failing to miss the way she leaned into his kiss. His tongue flicked against her pulse, tasting her, sucking at her, while his fingers tightened in her hair. He drew her higher onto his thigh, shifting slightly so that she was sitting on his lap. He pressed her against him- harder, deeper, wanting to pull her very essence inside of him.

She gasped, squirming in a way that only served to exacerbate the tension clawing at his veins. “Wait,” she panted.

He pulled back reluctantly, assuming she was going to push him away.

But her fingers tightened in his shirt, keeping him close. She bit her lip. “I need to say something. I need to be clear.” She wouldn’t meet his eyes. Her head was bowed, dark bangs hiding whatever emotion was written on her face. “I…” She swallowed. “I don’t love you,” she whispered, the words barely audible.

He knew, he _knew_ , and still it cut him up to hear her say it. But really, what had he expected? That given enough time, he would actually mean something to her? That she'd feel about him the way she felt about Jaeger? Those were the pitiful delusions of a broken man, and he should have known better than to hope. The world was cruel, and people like him didn't get happy endings.

Keeping his expression stoic- after years of practice, he’d perfected the art- Levi tipped her chin up. He forced her to look at him, waited until she did before he spoke. Guilt and desire shone heavy in her eyes, tugging at him in more ways than one. “I know that, Mikasa,” he said quietly. “I don’t care.”

He did. He cared so very fucking much.

She winced a little, as if his answer had pained her somehow, but then her brow smoothed out and fire replaced the guilt in her eyes. “Okay. Then this is… simple.” She paused, gave him a timid glance. “Because I do want this, _you_ , and if—”

His lips silenced her, kissing away her justifications. She made a small sound that was part gasp part whimper, and then her arms wrapped around his neck, clutching him closer. She parted her lips, letting him in, welcoming him back, and as his tongue delved into the softness of her mouth it felt like all their weeks apart were nothing.

 _I don’t love you_.

Levi pushed her words away. She was finally back in his arms and that was enough for him.

At least, that’s what he told himself.

His hands found the straps of her camisole and he pushed them down, exposing her shoulders to his lips. He kissed them, nibbling his way down her collarbones, feeling emboldened when he worked his way lower and she arched her chest towards his mouth in pliant supplication. He bit her nipple through the cotton of her camisole, making her moan, and she hastily yanked the shirt over her head and tossed it aside before pulling him back for another heated kiss.

Her mouth was heaven, demanding and sweet at the same time, and Levi savored the taste of her, greedily catching every gasp and groan. Her legs wrapped around him and she pressed her hips down, rocking against him, her taut nipples teasing him as they brushed against his still-clothed chest. He could feel the heat of her through their clothes, and his hands were there, roughly palming her hips, helping her find just the right angle to grind into him. His lips trailed to the base of her jaw and she hummed her appreciation, sending a quiver straight down to where the juncture of her thighs was rubbing against his growing arousal.

He cursed and dragged her hips harder into his, rewarded with a delicious moan as his hardness granted her the rough friction she was seeking. His hands slid down her thighs, burning as they moved over her bare legs, his callused palms raising fevered goosebumps on each inch of smooth skin they touched. When he reached her knees he grabbed a hold of them where they were gripping him and unwound them from his waist, ignoring her moan of protest. He kissed her quickly once, then shoved her back on the bed.

She propped herself up on her elbows, waiting impatiently, her eyes seducing him with a silent siren call that sent the blood straight to his cock.

 _Fuck_ , how he wanted her. But he was not giving in yet, not until she begged for it.

Holding her gaze, he slid her shorts and underwear down her legs and then crawled in between them. He pressed his lips to the inside of her knees, kissing his way higher and higher, holding her still as her legs quivered in response. He paid extra attention to the soft skin of her upper thighs, using his tongue and teeth and lips to nibble at her like she was a decadent dessert he wanted to devour _oh_ so slowly.

Mikasa shifted restlessly, back arching, eyes burning as they met his own. “Stop teasing me,” she breathed.

He chuckled. “Always so demanding…”

He gave her what she wanted, though, finally kissing the place that was burning for him. His tongue drank her in and she bucked beneath him, hands fisting into the sheets as she hissed in pleasure. He held her down, his hands gripping her thighs to hold her in place so he could take his time. With long, slow sweeps of his tongue, he coaxed her to the edge of climax twice, lavishing her until her thighs shook and her toes curled but stopping just before she fractured. He waited until she was panting and gasping for relief before he finally gave it, biting down gently on her clit as he hooked two long fingers up inside of her and pushed her over the edge.

She had barely come down before she was yanking him forward, rubbing against him as she dipped her hand into his pants and curled her fingers around him. He gripped her shoulders, his hips jerking at her touch. She’d learned him well enough to know _exactly_ how to drive him mad with just the grip of her hand and the curl of her fingers, and she wasn't shy about using what she'd learned.

“Now who’s teasing,” he snarled through clenched teeth.

Mikasa smirked, tugging at his bottom lip and nuzzling his nose with hers as she helped him out of his clothes.

They didn’t need words to tell each other what they needed. They had danced this dance before and they knew the steps by heart. Her lips said _hurry_ and his said _make me_. Her nails scratched at him as his fingers added bruises to the ones already on her skin. They ravaged each other in a way that would have broken other people but didn’t break them, bit and clawed their way closer in a way only the other could understand. They needed the brutal desperation- reveled in it- because they both expressed themselves better through violence than tenderness and the pain they inflicted on each other was a testament to all the pain they’d overcome.

They ended up on the floor in a twist of limbs and sheets, battling with each other, taking and giving in equal measure, just as they always had.

But Mikasa changed the dance when she went to pieces above him. As she fell against his chest, her muscles gripping him and her body spasming in release, she cried out his name.

Not some incoherent curse, not his military title.

His name.

And the dam of emotion Levi had restrained suddenly burst, hitting him with enough force to snap every vestige of control he had left. He rolled her over and pressed her roughly into the floorboards, driving into her so deeply that their hipbones crashed together and Mikasa clutched at his arms like they were her only tether to dry land, gasping raggedly as the force of his thrusts increased in an almost frenzied crescendo, in a punishing pace set entirely by him.

Levi usually let her be the dominant one- knew it worked for both of them- but right now he needed to be in control.

He wanted to claim every inch of her.

Forcing her legs open wider, he roughly grabbed her knees and hooked them high on his back, giving him the leverage he needed to work into her just _that_ much deeper. He could feel her nails digging into the skin of his biceps, could hear the sharpness of her gasps that were a little more pain than pleasure, but he didn’t stop- couldn’t- and she didn’t make him. She submitted to his wrath, welcomed it. Her heels pressed into his back as her legs squeezed him tighter, and her hands left his arms to tangle in his hair as she bit her bottom lip, her teeth sinking into its plushness in reaction to what his body was doing to hers. Levi had doubted she could drive him up any higher, but seeing her do that did. With a possessive growl, he leaned down and kissed her, taking her lip between his own teeth.

Moments later Mikasa cried out again, a strangled groan, her body pulsing hotly around his as another smaller but no less intense orgasm wracked through her. This time, she whispered his name against his ear, the feel of her lips making him shudder and triggering the inevitable build-up of his own orgasm. His hips snapped forward uncontrollably as he gave in to the blinding release.

He was looking into her eyes as his climax ripped through him, and she was looking back.

And fuck if it didn’t feel like coming home.

She might not love him, but in that moment she was with him. All of her. And it didn’t matter that that moment was as transient as a rainbow shimmering in the wake of a storm; they lived in a world where the only sure thing was _now_. Tomorrows were hopes, not promises, and after a life full of tragedy, Levi had learned to cherish every millisecond of happiness, no matter how fast its evanescence. So he didn’t care that in the morning Mikasa would go back to pining over Jaeger and that he’d be forced to endure her withdrawal again, (almost) didn’t care that he would never have more of her than this.

 _This_ was enough. Much more than he’d ever had before.

Mikasa shifted beneath him, a slight movement that rustled the sheets beneath her. Her body was still wrapped around him, her spent limbs still cradling his. “Levi?" She whispered. "Are you okay?” The beginnings of a frown creased her brow as she gazed up at him with eyes as bottomless as the night sky. Her hair was pillowed out around her head like a black halo, the silky strands shining iridescently in the moonlight. She looked strong and fragile at the same time, a beautiful paradox.

He ran the back of his knuckles down her cheek, a gentle contradiction to his earlier brutality. “Mikasa…” He began, but he couldn’t say the words, knew she wouldn’t want him to.

So he kissed her instead and let his lips say it for him.

 

**

“Did you hear that?” The gruff, male voice echoed loudly down the quiet corridor.

Mikasa shrank back into the shadows, holding her breath as the boat swayed almost imperceptibly beneath her feet. The other two boats she’d searched had been empty, devoid even of crew members, making them very easy to search.

But it seemed that her luck had finally run out. There had been no one walking the upper deck of the trawler when she'd climbed aboard, but now, down in the dimly lit passageway connecting a handful of cabins, it seemed she had company.

Keeping her back pressed against the wooden wall, Mikasa began to edge away from the sound of voices. It was imperative that she stay out of sight. If anyone found her, it would be impossible to explain why she was trespassing and even more so to explain why she was snooping around below deck. What she and the Captain were doing wasn't, after all, legal. 

The sounds of conversation grew fainter as she crept farther away, but she could still make out snatches of what they were saying.

“...You’re always hearing shit, Nigel. Ain’t nothing there!”

“Maybe my ears are just better than yours.”

There was a snort. “Sure. You keep telling yourself that. The rest of us know you’re just batshit.”

“Shut the fuck up, Liam. I have a _medical_ condition; I ain’t crazy.” Pause. “And I’m still gonna go take a look.”

Seconds later Mikasa heard the tread of heavy feet coming in her direction. She kept backing away, moving more quickly, until she heard the distinct turn of a doorknob from behind her. She whirled around to face the cabin door at her back- it was the only one she hadn't searched yet because it had been locked when she'd passed by earlier- positive that it would swing outward at any moment and reveal whoever was inside. But instead she heard the jangle of keys being dropped, followed by a curse, and the doorknob momentarily stilled.

Mikasa pursed her lips unhappily. Whoever it was had bought her a few seconds by dropping their keys, but that wasn't enough time for her to make it all the way to the ladder she'd come down on before they emerged. And there was someone already closing in on her from the other direction.

She was trapped.

 _I'm going to have to fight._ Instinctively, her hand went to the dagger at her belt, her mind already playing out possible attack scenarios. And yet she paused before her fingers could close around its familiar hilt.

_“Be cautious, Ackerman. If you find her, remember our orders. And do not take any unnecessary risks. Understood?”_

_“Understood.”_

_“I mean it, Mikasa: nothing rash. Use offensive measures only if absolutely necessary._ ”

Levi had said that to her right before they’d split up, his narrow eyes flecked with apprehension. She knew he still didn’t believe that she'd follow his orders, just as she knew that he would've preferred if they'd searched each boat together. Out on her own, he couldn't keep an eye on her. If there had been more time or fewer boats, he would've made a different call, would've stayed close to ensure that she kept her... how had he phrased it once?..." _idiotic impulsiveness_ " to a minimum. He didn't trust her to follow his lead or make objective decisions out in the field.

_Then again, when did I ever give him a reason to believe I would?_

She let her fingers drift away from her blade. _Fine, Heichou, nothing rash. I'll do it your way._ Spinning on her heel, she darted down the corridor the way she’d come, back towards the sound of voices. Seizing the narrow window of opportunity that she had, Mikasa propelled herself up the other set of stairs using only her arms, avoiding the squeak of the old steps that would have given her away, well aware that if she moved any slower she'd be spotted. Sure enough, she stepped clear of the hatch just as the man who had heard "something" rounded the corner below her.

If anyone had been on the deck, all they would’ve seen was a black blur darting so quickly out of sight they would have thought their eyes were playing tricks on them. Mikasa was over the side of the prow and down to the safety of the dock before the man was even up the rickety stairs from the cabin below. She eyed him impassively from the dock as he walked across the deck, watching as he swiveled his head on his stocky neck and squinted his tiny eyes in search of her. Finally, he waved a dismissive hand and headed back the way he’d come.

 _Good riddance_ , she thought smugly.

 _Three down, one to go._ She hoped Levi was having better luck than she was.

_Levi…_

She shivered, remembering the previous night. Something had been different between them, although the textbook definition of that difference eluded her. All she knew was that it hadn’t felt like any of their previous trysts. There had been a level of intimacy there that hadn’t been there before, a vulnerability— as if they had given each other something so much more than their physical bodies. She couldn't speak for Levi, but _her_ heart had been there, laid bare and open in the wake of her crumbling defenses.

What scared her was how right it had felt.

And still she’d told him one more lie— the biggest of them all. She tried to convince herself it was because she was waiting until they got back, but she knew that wasn’t entirely true. The moment had been there and she’d panicked, the little girl in her too scared to admit to having feelings that might not be reciprocated.

_I don’t care._

Maybe her fear had been justified.

A pair of gulls flew by overhead, noisy as they honked their arrival. They landed on the bow of the boat she'd just searched, drawing Mikasa's attention back to the reason she was at the docks. She was angry that she'd let herself daydream. Now was not the time for that. She was here to find Annie.

Pushing away her personal feelings, Mikasa let the soldier in her take over. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, and when she exhaled and opened her eyes she was calculated steel.

She moved towards the final boat, avoiding eye contact with everyone she passed but noticing them all, senses honed and reflexes at the ready.

She swept up onto the deck as silently as a wraith, weightless and fluid as she searched for Annie.

But again, her elusive former comrade was nowhere to be found.

Anxiety and anger fueled her in equal measure as she made her way towards the rendezvous point empty-handed.

"Are you lost, Miss?"

Mikasa turned. A freckle-faced boy was approaching her from the other side of the street, his blue eyes looking hopeful.

"No," she bit out, giving him a glare so withering he actually stepped back a pace. He gulped. "Sorry! I- I didn't mean to be disrespectful." He hurried away before she could even respond.

Mikasa didn't waste time feeling guilty about her rudeness. On any other day, she might have given him a small smile or a polite shake of her head or at least thanked him for his kindness, but on this particular morning, hostility had overridden her manners. All she wanted to do was get to the rendezvous point (where she hoped the Captain would be waiting with Annie) without any hassles.

Levi had told her to meet him away from the water, out front of an established fish market, and she wasn’t surprised when the market came into view and her Captain was already there, waiting. She was fast, but he always seemed just a hair quicker. It irked her competitive nature to no end.

But what irked her even more was that he was also alone.

There was no blonde girl chained at his feet, no blue-eyed bitch kneeling in the dirt with her hands tied behind her back. _No Annie._

Mikasa wanted to scream.

None of the boats had left the docks, but Annie hadn’t been on any of them. Mikasa was positive about that. She’d been meticulous in her search, and she knew Annie could never hope to elude the Captain. Which meant that Serena had been wrong.

Seething, Mikasa marched towards Levi, her feet pounding like lead against the cobbled street.

She was maybe fifty feet away from him when multiple things happened at once.

Two children hoisting a wheelbarrow behind them hit a rock in the street and the wheelbarrow tipped, their merchandise toppling over and spilling into the road.

A young mother walking with a baby in her arms stumbled over the fallen goods, yelping in surprise as she lost her balance.

Levi jumped forward from his perch at the edge of the street, easily catching the squealing baby. He returned the little bundle to its mother as she gushed her thanks to him and glared at the children who had almost caused a far worse accident, reprimanding them as they began to hastily gather the colorful assortment of fruit and produce now peppering the street and toss it back into their wheelbarrow.

Mikasa saw a glint of metal catch the sun out of the corner of her eye- over in the vicinity of her eight o'clock-  and as distracted as she was by the commotion in front of her, her eyes still shot like darts to its source, her almost preternatural alarm bells ringing with dire insistence.

Her instincts didn’t disappoint: the glint of metal was a gun.

Slowly, like she was reacting in a fog, her eyes traveled up to the person holding it, a dreadful certainty scratching at each vertebrae of her spine. _It's her, it’s her—_

It _was_ her.

 _Annie_.

She was hiding in the shadows not even twenty paces away, hood up and shoulders hunched. Cold blue eyes, hardness etched into the lines of her face, mouth turned down in a frown. She was just as Mikasa remembered, an image lifted from the pages of her memory and breathed back into flesh-and-blood existence. Her classmate, her competition, her enemy. The Female Titan.

Annie Leonhardt lifted her gun and Mikasa watched it happen, rooted to the spot.

Why she chose that moment to freeze, she had no idea. She only knew that she wasn’t going to move in time as she watched the barrel come up, watched as Annie took aim…

Not at her. Annie’s attention was fixed in front of her, and the gun was pointed at…

Mikasa’s mouth went dry, her pulse faltering as realization set in.

_Levi!_

And his attention was still turned towards the mother and child, unaware of the imminent danger at his back.

There was a moment of dreadful stasis, a split second for her brain to register the shock that had already stolen the air from her lungs. And then adrenaline kicked in and she was moving, running towards her Captain, the muscles of her legs straining as she sprinted from a standstill, willing herself to reach him in time.

_Please, please let me make it in time._

It was Eren all over again, teetering on the edge of the cliff. She wasn’t going to make it, she was too far away, and Levi… _Levi…_

She heard the shot, deafening to her own ears, the sound a death knell in her heart. Mikasa screamed his name, saw him turn, eyes going wide as she barreled into him, slamming into him so hard that they tumbled to the ground, both of them hitting the pavement with a sickening thud.

Mikasa felt a terrible, blinding pain in her shoulder as she landed but she ignored it, forcing herself to her feet, searching for Levi.

Tears of panic pricked her eyes. She had no idea if she’d reached him before the bullet had.

_Please be okay. Please, Levi._

And her eyes found him, scouring over his figure as he picked himself off the ground.

He was coughing raggedly, and there was a wicked cut on his brow and his clothes were torn in a few places from the fall.

But there were no telltale entry or exit wounds, no fatal, red splotch of color marring his jacket. The bullet had missed him.

She smiled, a tremulous tug of her lips. He was okay. He was okay and for once, everything…

Her relief dampened as she saw the look on his face.

He looked stricken, his unwavering gaze fixed on her in horror.

An uneasy frown curved her lips. _What…?_ She swayed, a little unsteady.

He was rushing towards her, she realized. His lips were moving- forming her name- but she couldn’t hear anything. There were people scattering around them too, shrieking and pointing, a few of them looking for the shooter, a few of them staring at her. But she couldn’t hear them, either.

And suddenly she felt much too lightheaded. And… _wet?_

Frowning, she glanced down, then sucked in a thin breath of surprise.

There was a dark stain bleeding across her jacket, soaking the fabric, spreading like a red ripple.

Still not quite comprehending what her eyes were telling her, she reached a shaking hand up and gingerly touched the wet material.

Her fingers came away a brilliant red. “No…” She breathed.

Yes, she’d reached Levi in time.

And she’d taken the bullet meant for him.

Her legs buckled and she was falling, falling…

“ _MIKASA_!”

Levi caught her before she could hit the ground, hands fisting into her jacket as he bent one knee to prop her up.

“ _Mikasa_!” There was a clear edge of panic in his voice, she noted, though that couldn’t be right. The Captain never panicked.

She wanted to answer, but it was so cold and she was suddenly so tired. Maybe if she closed her eyes for a moment, she would feel better. And then she would get the bullet out.

_In a minute…_

The sky was full of black stars, and the stars were falling down like twinkling meteors all around her.

No— not stars. Those were spots dancing in front of her eyes. It was morning and there were no stars.

She felt Levi shake her, but he was so far away. She squinted up at him, trying to see past the fog closing in around her but it was no use. Everything was dark and hazy, blurred at the edges of her vision like a murky oil painting.

And she knew what was coming.

Her hand clutched feebly at him. “It’s bad,” she rasped. She vaguely realized that she was in his arms, that he was running with her, cradling her against him. “It’s bad,” she repeated.

He didn’t reply.

Silhouettes flashed by as he ran with her, houses and shops and people, but she couldn't focus in on any of them. The colors and shapes were all wrong and her eyes refused to fix them.

_Running, running, running..._

She wondered where Levi was taking her, what he was hoping to accomplish. Neither of them was a stranger to death. He must know she was close. She could already feel herself beginning to fade.

Funny, she’d always thought it would be a Titan that would get her in the end. A bullet, at least, was a much more peaceful way to go.

_And I stopped it from hitting him. I saved him._

She inhaled, the motion cut short as she coughed on her own blood.

The spots were back, more like clouds this time than stars, and her thoughts were a jumble.

Except for one.

_I should have told you, Levi. I should have told you the truth._

_I'm...  
_

"...sorry," she wheezed.

Her head was spinning uncomfortably, too large for her neck to support. She leaned into him, watching as the vibrant red of her wound began to seep into his shirt. “Your clothes…are getting bloody, Heichou,” she said thickly, delirium setting in. Her tongue was heavy, cumbersome, and the words came out muddy. “I’m sorry…making…a mess.”

He didn’t break stride. “Stay with me, Ackerman,” he growled, but his voice was much too unsteady to harbor any bite. He stole a quick glance down at her, hooded eyes unreadable. “Don’t you dare fucking die on me,” he ordered as he started to run even faster. “Don’t you _dare_.”

It was the last thing she heard before the world slipped away.

 

**

“Is it true, Madame Gringla? Is Carolina cheating—”

The front door of her shop burst inward, startling both of them.

Serena sucked in a sharp breath as Levi marched through without bothering to close the door behind him, standing in the threshold like something out of a nightmare. His chest was soaked with blood and a few red streaks were smeared on his face like war paint.

Worse than that, though, was the look on his face.

Serena stood abruptly, her lilting speech faltering as she tried to cover her fear. “Peter, your session is over. Come back tomorrow.”

“But Madame Gringla,” he said, looking between the two of them in utter bafflement, “you haven’t even—”

Serena slammed a fist onto the table. “I said tomorrow, Peter!” She reined her temper in. “Please. Just go.”

He rose to his feet, his face a mixture of uncertainty and indignation. But he did as she asked, pausing only to gawk at the shorter man on his way out the door.

Serena was at his side in a heartbeat, her client forgotten. “Levi, what happened?!”

“Not now, Serena.” His steely eyes were full of dark emotion. “Do you still have your father’s bow and arrows- the special set he kept?”

He was covered in blood- _soaked_ in it- and he was asking her about weapons. Worry shot through her. She gripped his face in her hands, forcing him to look at her. “Levi, you’re a mess. You don’t need weapons, you need a doctor.” Her hands moved to his jacket, searching for the wounds. “Where are you hurt?”

He shoved her hands away. “I’m not.”

She didn’t understand. “But there’s so much blood—”

“It’s not mine.” His voice was ragged.

She froze, feeling an ugly lurch of realization. If it wasn’t Levi’s blood, then it had to be… Her green eyes widened. “Mikasa?” She breathed.

For a moment his face crumpled in pain, anguish twisting his features. He gripped her shoulders, hard, needing the support. “She… was shot. She took a bullet. For _me_ ,” he choked. His eyes searched hers, and suddenly he was seven years old again, sitting in a back alley with his arms around his knees, bruised and beaten and shaking. It was the only other time she’d seen him look so lost and small.

So frightened.

He drew in a shaky breath. “She pushed me out of the way, Serena. Why the _fuck_ would she do that? Why the fuck would she save me?” He was ranting, his voice cracking with emotion. ”I’m not her friend, not her precious Jaeger- I’m her superior! _I_ was supposed to protect _her_ and I couldn’t. Didn’t. Tell me: what am I worth if I can kill but never save? What is the fucking point of me?”

Her heart was breaking for him. His questions weren’t rhetorical and his train of thought was all wrong, but now wasn’t the time for her to address them. There was a more pressing question that needed answering. She made her voice as gentle as possible. “Is Mikasa—?”

Levi shook his head. “No. But she…was unconscious when I left her. I don't know if...”

Serena cut him off. “Where is she, Levi?”

“Erwin has a friend…a doctor in the inner city. I— I took her to him.”

Serena nodded, processing. She was afraid of the foreboding tremor she heard in his voice. Levi rarely gave in to his emotions, but when he did, it always meant he was about to snap. She’d seen it before and she didn’t want to see it again. She grabbed his hand, squeezing it reassuringly. “She’ll be okay, Levi. Let’s get you cleaned up and then we can go check in with the doctor.”

Quicker than a snake, he twisted his hand so that her wrist was in his grip. “No. Tell me if you still have your father’s weapons.”

“I do, but Levi-”

His fingers tightened painfully. “Get them.”

She flinched at the tone of his voice and the look in his eyes, but she didn’t cave so easily. “No. Not until you tell me exactly what you intend to do. Because I’ve seen you self-destruct before and it looked a lot like this.” She twisted her wrist in his grip. “And you’re _hurting_ me, Levi.”

He released her immediately, but the edge in his voice remained. “Annie Leonhardt was the one who shot at me. It’s her bullet lodged in Mikasa’s chest and it will be her fault if…” He didn’t finish the thought.

He looked at her, and the flatness of his gaze sent a chill down her spine.

“Get me the bow and arrows, Serena. I’m going hunting.”


	8. Reunions Are Not Always So Sweet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the long wait!! 
> 
> Everything always seems to pile up this time of year, and to say I've been a bit busy would be a bit of an understatement. Finding time to write has been difficult, and _actually_ writing has been even harder. It also didn't help that I deleted half of this chapter, twice. I should really just learn how to let things be sometimes.
> 
> Anyway...here it is now! I will try my gosh darn hardest not to be as tardy with the next update :)

The underground in Stohess had a reputation much like the underbelly of every other city: dank, dark, and full of unsavory people—a cesspit of human failure that bred violence and corruption. Its streets stank of rot and decay, and the pitiful water supply that ran through its center was barely drinkable, only tolerable to stomachs that had long since hardened against the putrid bacteria thriving in it. Gangs were commonplace, and with little military intervention, thievery and murder were daily occurrences.

It was not a place most decent people would dare set foot in.

But Annie Leonhardt had never considered herself a _decent_ person, and she didn’t have anywhere else to go. Avoidance was a luxury reserved for people with options, and all of her better options had long since deserted her. Hiding and waiting was all she had left, and her best chance for doing so was in the underground where no one - hopefully - would come looking for her.

Instead of finding a place to hole up in, Annie had stayed on the move, too restless and paranoid to settle in anywhere. Now, after hours of walking, she was growing somewhat accustomed to the way the worn cobblestones created an uneven canvas beneath her feet, their once-smooth finishes cracked from endless wear and tear. It was more like walking on a bed of sand and rubble than like walking on a road, and between that and the trash that was strewn almost ubiquitously along the sidewalks, it was impossible for Annie to tread silently. Every step she took was accompanied by the distinct crunch of a street that had long been in need of repaving and cleaning. And as far as she could tell, every street in the underground was in a similar state of disrepair and careless abandonment – full of trash and waste and general filth – one of the many signs of rampant destitution that choked the subterranean excuse for a city. It certainly made for a glaring contrast from the whitewashed, clean streets of the city some two hundred feet above.

But Annie ignored all of the environmental failings as much as she could, keeping her awareness focused instead on any and all movement around her. Her blue eyes scanned relentlessly back and forth from beneath the low cowl of her hood, paranoia making her more hyperaware than usual of what was going on around her. She noticed every person or group of people she passed, no matter how benign, her gaze flitting away only after she'd ascertained that they weren't an immediate threat. As tiring as it was, she  _had_ to be that cautious; she couldn't abide another misstep like the one she'd had yesterday.

The weight of the gun was heavy against her tailbone, tucked as it was in the back waistband of her pants, and it seemed to get heavier as she relived the last time she'd used it. Annie watched it replay in her head as if she'd pulled the trigger only a moment ago: Mikasa stumbling forward, Mikasa's knees buckling, Mikasa's blood seeping through her jacket. There had been an ominous amount of blood, far too much, even though Annie was almost certain her bullet had missed Mikasa's heart. She supposed it didn't really matter. Either way, Mikasa was most likely dead by now.

 _Just another cold body waiting to be buried_.

The thought made her frown. _Nothing ever goes as planned._

How many times had she ended up in a bad way because of her fellow cadets from the 104th? How many times had it been solely Mikasa’s fault?

And yet despite it all, Annie hadn’t wanted to kill her. They were rivals, but she’d always felt a certain respect for Mikasa - for her strength and determination. They were traits she could admire, along with the dark-haired girl's unwavering sense of loyalty. Mikasa was single-minded to the point of recklessness when it came to protecting Eren, but it was the kind of devotion that could never be bought. Most people lived their whole lives without knowing that kind of loyalty. Annie wondered if Eren knew how lucky he was to have someone that cared so much.

Chances were good that if she’d seen Mikasa yesterday, she never would have taken the shot. She would’ve let her walk away, waited patiently until she was gone and then made a break for the boat. But Annie hadn’t seen her, not until after she’d pulled the trigger. All of her attention had been focused on her intended target, on the one person who posed a real threat to her.

She’d been headed to the docks as planned when she’d seen _him_ —Captain Levi. He’d jumped out of nowhere to rescue some babe, of all things, and the awful shock of recognition she'd felt had quickly been replaced with cold understanding. Of course the Commander would send his bloodhound after her, to sniff her out and wrap his teeth around her throat. She'd been a fool to think they'd forgotten about her. They would never forget, least of all the Captain, not after everything she'd done. Not when she had so much blood on her hands.

Now he was out for _her_ blood.

Annie knew him mostly from reputation alone, though he had spoken to her twice before. Once when she was in her Titan form, and again after she’d crystallized herself. Both times his words - his _threats -_ had haunted her, especially when she’d been trapped inside her own prison, immobile but still very much aware. When the Captain had come to visit her, she’d heard every word he’d said and she’d been trapped with their violent echoes long after he’d gone. She knew he would be vicious enough to make good on his promises to rip her limb from limb, knew it wouldn’t matter to him whether she was in Titan or human form. Vengeance was a blind equalizer.

So when his back had been turned yesterday she hadn't hesitated to shoot. The very sight of him had roused her survival instinct, and she'd been more than ready to take out one of her most formidable foes. The second he'd returned the little bundle to its mother's arms she had lined up her shot and pulled the trigger.

And it had been the perfect shot, too - aimed straight for his heart and meant to drop him dead before he even realized what had happened. Swift and sudden and unstoppable. Or so she had thought.

She had never expected that Mikasa would rush in and push him out of the way, had never expected that she would take the bullet for him. _But_ , she thought again, _nothing ever goes as planned._

In actuality, Annie knew she should be grateful that she’d hit Mikasa; the dark-haired girl _was_ out to kill her, after all. But she felt no sense of accomplishment, no relief of any kind. And to make matters worse, Captain Levi had seen her, his eyes locking onto her as he traced the bullet’s trajectory. The eyes of a killer finding his prey.

When Mikasa had fallen it had distracted him long enough for Annie to run. And run she had - like her very life depended on it. She’d pushed and shoved people out of her way, ignoring the angry shouts that trailed behind her, desperate to get away.

Now, down in the underground, with only a few bullets left and her eyes tired from straining to see in the dim lighting, she wanted nothing more than to leave Stohess once and for all.

But she would bide her time. Less than twenty-four hours had passed since the incident at the docks, and things hadn’t settled down enough for her to risk going topside. Even the Police, for all of their inadequacy, would be performing an obligatory investigation for at least a few days. It was protocol. For now, she would have to stay put.

A few more blocks led her away from the main streets of the underground and for a while she saw and heard no one at all, until she rounded a corner and saw a group of people conversing on the sidewalk ahead of her, a cluster of burly men waving their arms at each other as they laughed raucously. Even from a distance, Annie could hear the slur of their words and see the ruddiness of their cheeks and noses that was so often a trademark of loose drinking habits. A few of them had knives hitched to their belts, intentionally visible to any passerby. Annie paused. They hadn't seen her and she intended to keep it that way. Even though the idea of fighting a few sloppy drunks didn't faze her, the last thing she wanted to do was cause a scene. She turned down a side street to avoid walking past them, hunching over and making herself as nondescript as possible. It worked; not one of them even glanced her way.

The side street was dirt and it was empty. There was no one outside, no activity of any kind, and the only point of interest was a laundry line that someone had suspended between two rickety balconies, the clothes hanging limply from makeshift clothespins. There was no breeze in the underground, so Annie couldn’t quite see the point of hanging things out to dry. It just seemed like a good way for clothing to get stolen. Shaking her head, she reined in her wandering thoughts.

She was about halfway down the street when she suddenly stopped.

One heartbeat. Two. Three.

She stood deathly still as the hair on the back of her neck began to rise in icy warning.

_Something is wrong._

There was a sound - a strange whistling by her right ear - and Annie jumped to the left, spinning away just as the arrow embedded itself into the sidewalk where she’d been standing a split second earlier.

Her blue eyes went wide with alarm as she whipped her head up and threw her hood back. There was no reason to hide now, and she needed every available inch of her peripheral vision to find whoever was…

Her assailant was crouched on the roof of an old tenement, feet balanced between patches of molding shingles, holding his weapon like it was a natural extension of his arm. Once he saw that she’d spotted him, he dropped down from his rooftop perch and landed easily on the ground, tucking and rolling to break his fall. He stood up, bow in hand, another arrow already plucked from the quiver on his back and notched in place.

There was a prolonged moment of stasis, both of them standing there silently in the street, eyes locked in something unspoken that made even the rats scurry away.

For the first time she could remember, Annie felt a nauseating wave of pulse-pounding fear coil in the pit of her stomach as she stared like a deer caught in a trap at the man who had somehow, _somehow_ , managed to find her.

There was no trace of emotion on his face, no sign of anything at all, but when Captain Levi spoke, his single command dripped with more ire than Annie had ever heard, his voice heavy with all the coldness of a demon come to collect its due.

“ _Run_.”

She did.

She took off at a blinding speed, sending up a shower of dirt as she pivoted sharply and bolted, all thoughts obliterated into a single, burning motivation: _escape_. She broke into a flat-out sprint, arms and legs pumping like a machine, feet kicking up all matter of debris as she tore down the street. She didn’t hear any sounds of pursuit, couldn't hear anything over the crunch of her feet pounding the ground and the wild thumping of her heart. Realizing that he could be taking aim, she began to weave erratically as she ran, zigzagging randomly back and forth as she varied her speed and direction to make herself a more difficult target.

Right before she rounded the corner she stole a glance over her shoulder, fear getting the better of her. The Captain was following her, moving towards her with long, determined strides, bow held aloft, arrow pulled taut.

He loosed it without warning, and Annie dodged to the side—not quickly enough. It clipped her ear as it flew by, slicing painfully into her flesh. A few drops of blood spattered across her cheek.

Gritting her teeth, Annie picked up her pace, muscles screaming with exertion as she tore down the next street. Patchwork tenements rose up before her, even shabbier than those she’d seen before, and as Annie surged by them, she scanned each and every one, looking for an open window, a door - _something_ that would help her shake Captain Levi.

 _There_.

A balcony on the second floor, its door hanging limply off of hinges that had long since rusted over. She darted towards it, hoisting herself up a ladder propped against the wall as her ear began to throb.

She darted inside, ignoring the startled cry of surprise she heard. She took out her gun, pointing it at the elderly couple huddled in the corner. Their clothes were barely more than rags, and the loaf of bread they were sharing looked as though it had been pawed at by others before they'd gotten the scraps. They were clearly squatters, seeking some modicum of shelter in an abandoned home. Pitiable beings, surely, but Annie didn't lower the barrel of her gun. “Not a word,” she whispered, and they nodded, hands raised in defense.

Annie frowned. She wouldn’t kill them, but the looks on their faces made it clear that they were expecting her to. The shake in the man's hands was more than just arthritis, and the trembling of the woman's lips had nothing to do with the temperature. They were terrified - eyes fixed on her with unbridled fear and distrust. The expression was a familiar one; it was the way everyone looked at her - even Eren and Armin, in the end.

“Is there a back way out?” Her ear was ringing uncomfortably.

The man nodded vigorously, pointing towards a closed door.

Annie moved towards it and kicked it open, revealing what she guessed was once a bedroom. Sure enough, there was a window on the far wall, devoid of curtains and cracked in multiple places. She tucked the gun back in her pants and opened it - carefully avoiding the broken glass - and looked down, breathing a sigh of relief when she saw the slope of an eave just a few feet away. It would break her fall nicely.

Moving with nimble grace, she propelled herself out of the window and dropped downwards, relaxing her muscles just enough to ease her fall as she landed. She slid down the eave, arms out for balance, and then she jumped, landing on the ground with a thud.

This street was more inhabited than the last, and a few people glanced at her curiously as she sped by them.

"Mama, what's that man doing?"

Annie's eyes snapped to the little boy who'd spoken and then followed his outstretched arm. He was pointing at a building adjacent to the one she'd just dropped down from, and Annie felt her throat go dry as she saw the Captain making his way across the patchwork rooftops with all the grace of a cat, his hawk-like eyes trained on her. Retrieving her gun, Annie fired off a shot, cursing as he twisted away. She tried again, and this time the bullet sent up a cloud of brick dust as it lodged itself into a chimney to Levi's left. He dropped down, disappearing from Annie's line of sight, and Annie took off again, mindless of the way people gasped and pointed as she passed by with the gun still clutched in her hand.

One block away, and she was still looking over her shoulder, scanning the roofs, positive that he was still hot on her trail.

Two blocks away, and there was still no sign of him. Her ear was tingling strangely and the ringing had gotten worse.

Three blocks away, and Annie was thinking maybe she had shaken him after all. She paused, placing her hands on her knees to catch her breath.

The arrow sliced through the right sleeve of her hoodie and grazed her tricep, sailing out of nowhere, and Annie spun around defensively even as she raised her gun, her grip faltering a little, though whether that was from fear of something else was uncertain. 

Captain Levi was standing in the middle of the street as if he'd been there the whole time waiting for her, twirling another one of his accursed arrows in his fingers as though staving off a bout of boredom.

Annie squared herself towards him, giving him a cold blue stare. _"Is this how you want to play it, then?"_ She muttered under her breath.

Fine. If the indignant little fucker thought he could toy with her, she'd show him how mistaken he was. Her father hadn’t raised her to be a coward, hadn’t raised her to run. She was a Leonhardt—proud and strong, and she would not be cut down by anyone, not even by the notorious Captain Levi.

Not without taking him with her.

She raised her gun and fired, the bullet arcing through the air in a perfect replication of her shot from the day before...

...and it took out a window not even remotely close to where Levi was standing.

Annie gaped in shock. She'd wasted her final bullet on a shot she normally could have made in her sleep.  _How did I miss so badly?_

As if in reply, she noticed that her arm felt heavier than usual, that it was tingling the same way her ear was. Panic began to claw at her. _What is going on?_

Levi hadn't moved at all, hadn't even flinched when she'd shot at him. He was just standing there, watching her, still twirling the arrow in his fingers. He made no move to attack her.

 _Why is he hesitating?_  

Shaking off her uneasiness, Annie dropped the gun, letting it clatter to the ground. She didn't need it. A gun wasn't her most formidable weapon, after all.

She began to raise her hand, eyes glued to her enemy as she did so. She no longer had her ring, or course, but that didn’t deter her; her teeth would work just as well. It was a gamble, she knew—there wasn’t enough room for her to shift in the underground, not without risk. She could be crushed, cause a cave-in, and hiding would be impossible.

But she didn’t care. All she needed was to get one good stomp, one good kick, land one Titan-fueled blow that would leave the Captain nothing more than a bloody smear on the ground.

She opened her mouth and bared her teeth. _Game on._

She raised her hand, preparing to bite.

Levi was faster.

The arrow sliced through her hand, piercing her in a burst of bone-splintering pain. Annie screamed and stumbled, her mind going blank as the nerve endings in her hand blistered red. Still gasping, she managed to dive behind a stack of abandoned building supplies cluttered at the mouth of a narrow alley before falling to her knees. Trembling, she surveyed the damage.

Her hand was skewered, the tip of the arrow sticking out of her palm and dripping blood.

_I have to get it out._

She whimpered, the pain making it hard to focus on anything except for the throbbing agony of punctured skin and broken bone. She broke off the arrowhead, clenching her teeth to suppress a cry as the wooden shaft twisted around inside her hand. _Step one done, Leonhardt. Now get the fucking arrow out._ Biting down on the fabric of her hoodie, she counted to three and yanked, mercilessly ripping the arrow from her hand, blood bubbling up as she tore the shaft free. As quickly as she could, she reached beneath her hoodie and ripped off a strip of her shirt, tying it clumsily but tightly around the bleeding hole in her palm, fear cutting through the haze of pain as she realized that her ruined hand was also tingling strangely.

_Move. I have to move before he finds me._

She stood—and wobbled. Reaching out her good hand, she steadied herself on the brick wall. Her senses were suddenly foggy, a quicksand of unawareness threatening to tug her under. And it was getting harder to breathe, as though some unseen hands were choking her out, fingers tightening with awful insistence on her throat.

She wheezed and stole a glance down at the arrow, noticing for the first time its peculiarity. The tip was small and sharp and beaded with more than just her blood. She stooped down, hand sifting for it, finally clutching it. She brought it to her eyes, blue orbs widening in shock as she saw the oily black liquid on its tip. She rubbed it on her fingertip, watching as it glistened unnaturally on her skin.

_Poison._

She stumbled away from it, reeling, but before she could even fully process that revelation, a cold voice stopped her dead in her tracks.

“Efficient, isn’t it? I’ve heard that this particular poison doesn’t take long to course through the bloodstream.”

Dread filled her stomach as Annie twisted around and came face to face once again with Captain Levi. Her panic heightened, and she instinctively backed farther into the alley to put some distance between them. He made no immediate move to follow her, but then again he didn’t have to. He was between her and the mouth of the alley, an impassable obstacle.

 _Trapped. Trapped. Trapped._ The word pulsed in her brain alongside each stutter of her heartbeat.

She pressed her good hand into a fist, trembling at the amount of effort it took for her to control that small motor movement – a struggle that didn’t go unnoticed by the Captain. His lidded eyes gleamed at her, cold and cat-like. “I hope that doesn’t numb up too soon. I want you to feel this.”

He lashed out faster than the flick of a whip, landing a palm strike directly to her solar plexus as he knocked her defensive fist aside. Gasping for air, she began to fall, and as she started to tip backwards his foot smashed into her ribs, sending her flying into the dirt. She doubled over, clutching at her stomach and wheezing, chest heaving as she sucked in shallow gulps of air. But she refused to stay down. She rolled away from him and lurched - less adeptly than usual - to her feet, shifting into her combat stance.

 _Focus._ If she had the ability to expedite the healing process in her Titan form, she could certainly put enough mental stamina behind her leg to land a decent kick. She moved, shifting all the weight to her back leg. Exhaled as a lone bead of sweat slid down her neck.

She kicked, the snap on her roundhouse as deadly as ever.

But Levi dodged it as if she were a slug, twisting away from the attacking limb without exerting any great amount of effort. His hands wrapped around her ankle before she could retract her foot and he torqued it roughly to the left, knocking her off balance. Annie went down hard, and before she had time to regain any equilibrium, the heavy toe of his boot came swinging at her again, knocking her flat to the ground.

She inhaled dirt and coughed, shielding her face as he rolled her onto her back with the side of his foot.

“Not really a fair fight, I know, what with the poison slowing you down. Not that you’d be a match for me even at your best.” The words might have been arrogant coming from someone else, but the way he spoke them - full of malicious contempt - was meant not to boost his own ego but to strip hers down.

He plucked another arrow from the quiver on his back. “Of course, you were never one to fight fair, either. We’re both monsters, it seems.” His eyes flashed. “But only one of us is a traitor.”

She could feel it now - the paralysis already seizing her limbs - and, using all of her reserve strength, she reached her good hand to her mouth, desperate.

The arrow sliced through her palm before she’d even realized he’d loosed it, hitting with such force that it nailed her hand to the ground beside her head.

Annie opened her mouth but her scream was silent, her vocal cords unresponsive.

Hard eyes invaded her senses, his face close to hers as he grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked her head up, his fingers twisting savagely at the blonde roots. “Did you really think I'd let you escape after what you did to my squad? After what you did to Mikasa?” His voice was unnervingly emotionless. "I would have hunted you down no matter where you chose to go." He released her head with a jerk and Annie felt a wave of pain as her skull rattled against the ground.

Tears welled in her eyes and spilled over, even as the rest of her body betrayed her to a numbing stupor.

_I’m never coming home, Father._

Captain Levi stood up, looming above her. He was her judge, jury, and executioner, and she had no defense to offer to the weight of his accusing eyes.

She thought of Bertholt, of Reiner, wondered if they were still alive and free, wondered if they were still fighting alongside the scouts who had tried to kill her. It would be better for them if they were, lest they be cornered as she had been.

The Captain reached for the quiver on his back with exaggerated slowness and extracted another arrow, his fingers caressing its shaft almost lazily as he notched it in place.

_You were wrong, Father. When the world is your enemy, you cannot win. It’s not enough that you were always on my side._

He stretched the arrow back, took aim.

“You deserve much worse than this.”

The tears continued to trickle from her ice-blue eyes, even though she could no longer feel them as they tracked across her cheeks. She inhaled, mustering up a last bout of willpower. _Please,_ she mouthed silently, begging for mercy because, underneath all of her defenses and the nearly implacable hardness she’d cultivated all her life, she was still just a girl who didn’t want to die. She wanted to see her father again, wanted to be wrapped in his arms where she would be sheltered from all the hatred and fear the world harbored for her. So she forced the muscles of her mouth to bend to her will just once more, fighting hard against the paralytic that had made her a prisoner in her own skin in order to ask— to plead— for some shred of mercy.

Captain Levi showed her none.

 

**

Rosa Stein watched the teakettle as it began to hiss, fingers tapping mindlessly on the table as the steam erupted from the spout and curled in the air like dragon’s breath.

“Rosa? What are you doing?”

She straightened up from her hunched position, her stiff back aching in protest. She smiled as Dr. Grayson appeared in the doorway, his bushy brows raised in question as he squinted at her behind a pair of ancient half-moon spectacles.

“I’m making tea,” she said, removing the boiling pot from the stove as hastily as she could manage, listening as the strident hiss faded into silence. Damn thing could’ve woken the dead and she probably wouldn’t have noticed. She’d been spacing out again, distracted just as she had been all week long, ever since the arrival of their… _unusual_ patient.

“You don’t drink tea.”

“But you do,” she said as he pulled out a chair at the table - its legs squeaking against the floor - and sat down. He tapped his chin thoughtfully as she poured water over the tealeaves and let the brew steep.

“You’re very quiet today, Rosa,” the doctor commented after a time, breaking the comfortable silence that had fallen between them.

“I’ve been thinking. About our patient.” Rosa poured the tea into a cup and placed it on a matching saucer before she slid it across the table to him. He gripped it in his wizened hands and raised it to his lips, inhaling deeply. “Lovely,” he murmured, blowing gently on the steam that rose off the hot liquid. He took a long drag and placed it down in the saucer. “She’s a tenacious girl, that one,” he said, eyes still focused on his tea. “And lucky, too. If that bullet had been even a centimeter to the right…” He ran a hand through his shock of white hair and shook his head. “Lucky indeed.”

Rosa didn’t openly disagree with him, but she found it hard to describe the pale girl lying bandaged on a cot upstairs as _lucky_. Rosa had tended to her alongside Dr. Grayson, just as she did with all of his patients, and despite the myriad of sick and wounded that crossed their threshold, she’d found herself shocked at the extent of the young girl’s suffering. After the doctor had successfully removed the bullet, it had been Rosa’s job to clean her up, and while she’d been sterilizing and bandaging, she’d seen not just the immediate damage, but a lifetime’s worth of bruises, scrapes, and scars—a history of violence embedded into the canvas of her skin. And nothing about that seemed lucky in Rosa’s opinion. Just painfully sad, that so young a girl could have already endured so much.

“I’m off to bed. Check on her before you turn in for the night, would you?” He paused, then added: “And if her visitor is still here, kindly remind him that he’s welcome to use one of the spare rooms if he’d prefer to stay.”

Rosa hadn’t even realized that Dr. Grayson had finished his tea, but sure enough, the cup was in the sink and he was standing by the doorway, looking very much the tired, elderly gentleman he was.

She nodded. “Of course, Dr. Grayson.”

He smiled, wrinkles deepening. “Thank you. Good night, Rosa.”

He left her to her thoughts.

Rosa washed the cup out but hesitated with the kettle. There was still enough water for one more generous cup of tea, and even though it would probably go to waste anyway, she didn’t pour it down the drain. Maybe she could heat it again in the morning and surprise the doctor with it. Or maybe the man upstairs would like a cup.

She chewed on her lip, her focus straying yet again to the girl whose name she didn’t even know as her hands absentmindedly procured another cup and saucer from the cupboard. Unanswered, unasked questions buzzed in her head like gnats, pesky little nuisances that only made her more curious to know the girl's story.

It had all started when the man (whose name she also didn’t know) burst through their front door nine days earlier, looking half-crazed as he’d shouted for the doctor, all the while clutching the wounded girl to him as though his arms were solely responsible for keeping her alive.

Dr. Grayson had ushered him upstairs without so much as a word, moving with astonishing alacrity for someone of his age as he’d barked commands at Rosa and worked quickly to stem the bleeding.

The man who’d brought her had stood by all the while, hands clenched tightly at his sides as Dr. Grayson prepared to remove the bullet, barely moving a muscle as he watched the doctor tend to her with harrowed eyes.

It was only when Rosa had offered to get him a towel to wash the blood from his face that he’d reacted, shaking his head and striding from the room after muttering a terse _I’ll be back, don’t let her die_.

And he had come back—two nights later, looking considerably more composed, no speck of blood marring his clothes or face, no sign of hysteria in his piercing eyes. And he’d come back religiously every night since then too, always staying for an hour or so, never saying much, just sitting idly by the girl’s bedside, sometimes with his head in his hands, sometimes with his hands resting near hers on the sheets.

Twice there had been a redhead with him, a striking woman who filled her companion’s silences with friendly words and smiles. Rosa didn’t know quite what to make of her, partially because she couldn’t bring herself to trust someone with hair so _unnaturally_ red (red was the Devil’s color, after all) and partially because her easy-going vivacity seemed completely out of place with the short man’s sullen demeanor.

But the list of visitors coming to see the girl upstairs hadn’t stopped with those two. Late in the afternoon two days past, Rosa had nearly dropped an armful of linens as a bright-eyed boy swept into the room and almost knocked her aside in his haste, his passionate features crumpling as he took in the sight of the girl on the bed. He’d rushed over and clutched her hands, tears of fervent emotion pooling in his eyes as he stared down at her. The poor thing had looked about ready to have a breakdown, and once Rosa had recovered from the fluster of it all, she’d coaxed him downstairs and made him sit while she fed him some soup to calm his nerves.

The last visitor had come yesterday morning, and Rosa recognized him the moment she answered the door. Tall, blonde, and missing one arm, he’d nodded in greeting as he stepped inside and asked to speak with Dr. Grayson.

The two of them had gone into the doctor’s office as Rosa waited in bewildered silence in the kitchen, wondering how the man she had worked with for nearly all of her widowed life knew Commander Erwin Smith, and what any of it had to do with the girl upstairs. All she could surmise was that the girl must be in the military. But before she’d ever been able to ask, Dr. Grayson had told her bluntly: _“no questions, Rosa.”_

It had been a strange week indeed.

Tea in hand, Rosa made her way up the stairs slowly, her hip protesting each step of the way just as it had for the past twenty years, and just as she’d done for the past twenty years, Rosa grimaced and resolutely ignored the throbbing in her joints.

The last door on the left was ajar - the girl’s room - and Rosa used her back to push it further open, turning and offering the man in the chair a small smile as she offered him the tea.

“Here," she said, holding it out to him. "I made extra.”

He took it from her after a moment, placing the saucer in his lap. “Thanks,” he mumbled as he raised the cup to his lips, fingertips ghosting the rim.

She watched him in silence as he took a slow sip of the steaming brew, her eyebrows raised in disapproval. “The handle won’t bite, you know,” she remarked as she made her way to the bed and raised the sheets to inspect the girl’s bandages.

Her only answer came in the form of a lackluster snort.

Rosa glanced over at him, noticing how his brow furrowed and his eyes darted away as she pulled the sheets back, as if he couldn’t quite bring himself to look at whatever wounds those sheets had concealed. “No need to be squeamish. The blood’s all cleaned up,” she said as she turned her attention to the girl, checking to make sure none of the stitches had opened and that the gauze was still wrapped properly around her shoulder and chest. She also touched two fingers to her neck, checking the rhythm of her pulse, reassured when she felt a strong, steady beat beneath her fingertips.

She readjusted the sheets, tucking her in carefully with gentle hands.

The man was still looking away, and Rosa paused as she smoothed out the covers. Perhaps it wasn’t squeamishness that kept him from looking. She’d seen enough people pass through Dr. Grayson's care to pick up on different bedside manners, to be able to read into the silent expressions visitors so often wore.

She certainly recognized guilt when she saw it.

_But why? Surely he isn’t the one who did this to her._

Finally he looked up, his guarded eyes meeting hers. Rosa gave him an encouraging smile, something else she’d cultivated over the years. It was reassuring and genuine and very much from the heart. “I know she may look a little rough at the moment, but she’s pulled through the worst of it. Dr. Grayson is very hopeful.”

The man shifted in his chair. “Hope,” he echoed in a hollow voice, “will get you nowhere.”

Rosa frowned, her old heart moved with pity at the bleakness of his words. _Quite a harsh opinion to have for someone so young_ , she thought as she took a closer look at him. Well, he wasn’t that young, truth be told; it was just that everyone looked young to her, considering she’d already been widowed and middle-aged by the time most of the younger generation had been born. Still, she had a feeling that the deep shadows beneath his eyes and the gaunt expression he wore made him appear older than he actually was. He was probably young enough to be her son. She also knew that whatever his relationship was to the girl in the bed, she meant a great deal to him. It wasn’t the same blazing affection that the other boy had shown, but it was something deep and real, something not easily seen but not easily forgotten either.

In a moment of maternal tenderness, Rosa reached out and squeezed his shoulder, keeping her hand there even as she felt his muscles stiffen at her touch. “Hope will get you farther than despair will,” she said. She moved away then, limping slightly as pain shot through her hip, a reminder that living long enough to see her hair turn grey came at a price. When she got to the door she clutched the knob and turned back. “Dr. Grayson’s offer for you to make use of one of the spare rooms still stands,” she said. “If you want to stay close by.”

“If I do stay, I’ll be fine right here,” he replied quietly, fingertips still grasping the rim of the teacup in his lap. “But thank you,” he added as an afterthought. His eyes never left the bed.

Rosa stood there a moment longer and then left the room, closing the door softly behind her.

As she made her way to her own room, she thought that maybe Dr. Grayson had been right after all. The girl clearly led a difficult life, but she had people in it who loved her.

And that was a lucky thing indeed.

 

**

Erwin paused with his hand poised to knock, frowning as he listened to the sounds of a heated argument from the other side of the door.

There was the distinctive sound of a palm striking skin, the whip-like sting of it carrying through the door, followed by the shrill sound of an angry, feminine voice.

Stepping back, he looked up at the numbers adorned above the entryway, checking to make sure he’d gotten the address right. Sure enough, there was no mistake. It was the same number scrawled in sloppy penmanship on a piece of paper folded in his pants pocket.

Erwin rapped thrice on the door and waited. There was silence and then the door burst open, nearly whacking him in the face as it came banging in his direction. A girl with an expression as angry as the color of her hair stood there, and just beyond her, Erwin could see Levi, his cheek still burning crimson from the force of the girl’s slap.

Erwin cleared his throat, but before he could say anything, the redhead turned her blazing eyes on him, giving him a once-over so withering that it made him feel as if he’d lost a few inches of his considerable height.

“Commander Erwin Smith,” she said, derisive sarcasm dripping heavily from each word, “what a pleasure.”

The open hostility in her tone surprised him, but he covered smoothly enough. “Good afternoon,” he greeted her, infusing his voice with friendliness. “Dr. Carlisle Grayson gave me your address. I’m here to see Captain Levi.”

“I know. Use the back room.” She looked over her shoulder. “And Levi? This conversation isn’t over.”

She left without another word, but not before she graced Erwin with one more hostile glare.

He frowned after her, completely thrown off by her animosity towards him. He was certain he'd never met her before, so he was more than at a loss as to where her resentment came from.

"Serena isn't a fan of yours," Levi said from behind him, and Erwin turned at the sound of his voice. He walked inside, closing the door behind him.

"I noticed." He inclined his head towards the mark she'd left. "She doesn't seem too taken with you at the moment, either."

Levi brushed a hand absently across his cheek. "She has a short fuse when it comes to me. Especially when she thinks I'm being an idiot." He turned and led Erwin through Serena's shop and into the back, and Erwin followed, even as his eyes strayed to the various curiosities filling the shelves in the main room. It was puzzling to imagine just how Levi knew a person like Serena, and vice versa. The two ostensibly seemed to have nothing in common.

If they had more time, he would've asked Levi about it, but time had been scarce ever since he'd received Levi's letter four days ago detailing Annie Leonhardt's capture and Mikasa Ackerman's condition. He'd left for Stohess immediately, and, after dropping Eren Jaeger off at the doctor's, he'd met with Nile to discuss his proposal for moving Annie out of the city once she was deemed medically stable enough to travel and taking her to the Corps' headquarters. It was a matter of safety as well as practicality, he'd explained. If she somehow managed to break free again, the Corps would be much better equipped to deal with her than the Police. Fortunately, Nile had agreed.

He'd met with Carlisle the following day and been happy to learn that he was optimistic about Mikasa's recovery. Erwin had always trusted the doctor's judgment, ever since he'd been a little boy going to him for his annual checkups.

This was the first he'd time he'd seen Levi since getting to the city, however. Physically, his Captain seemed fine, but Erwin wasn't as sure the same could be said about his mental state. His usual air of indifferent calm was decidedly absent, and he seemed to be struggling to lift his gaze from the floor.

“I fucked up, Erwin,” Levi said as he sat down heavily in a chair in the corner, “and then I fucked up some more.”

Erwin stayed standing, opting instead to lean against the wall by the door. He eyed his Captain with quiet attentiveness. “That’s not how I see it, Levi.”

His point of view didn’t seem to console Levi. Erwin saw his mouth tighten. “Well, you’re wrong.”

It pained him to see Levi pulling the martyr act. He knew it was genuine, not just for show; the guilt of some perceived failure was etched into every frown line on his face. “Levi, you recaptured Annie Leonhardt, which was your objective all along. Your methods may have been a little unorthodox—”

“You mean my shooting her five times with poisoned arrows?” He interjected wryly.

Erwin paused. “Well, yes.” Levi’s shots had hit no vital organs, done no serious damage aside from the poison that had left the Leonhardt girl in a temporary coma. It would have been a sign of poor archery skills in any other case, but Erwin knew Levi’s misses had been intentional. He cocked his head, allowing some of his curiosity to show. “Why _did_ you do that? We both know one shot was all you really needed to incapacitate her.”

Levi’s hands balled into fists on his lap. “One arrow wasn’t sufficient to make my point,” he answered sharply.

“You wanted her to suffer.”

“Yes.”

Erwin never pried, never asked any personal questions that he thought Levi might find invasive, and yet his intuition told him that this was the time to make an exception. He lowered his voice. “Because of what she did to Mikasa Ackerman?”

Levi glanced up at him immediately, caught off guard by his directness, but the look in his eyes told Erwin everything he needed to know.

Before the shorter man could throw up his defenses, Erwin held up his hand. “I’m not judging you, Levi.” His voice softened. “I never have, and I never will. I’m your commanding officer, but I’m also your friend. Drop the formalities for a minute and be honest with me, please.”

Levi was quiet for a long time, head hanging down, hands still balled into fists and clutching at the fabric of his pants. The seconds ticked by, but Erwin waited patiently.

When Levi finally did look up at him, his eyes were fierce with emotion, tempered but fiery nonetheless. “I love her, Erwin,” he whispered, and the words sounded like surrender on his lips. He shook his head and ran a shaky hand through his hair, lips pressing into a line of dissatisfaction. “I know I fucking shouldn’t, but I do."

Erwin did his best to conceal the surprise he felt at hearing Levi state it so blatantly; he hadn't expected him to be so forthcoming. "You can't choose who you love, Levi," he said, not unkindly.

Levi snorted. "But I can choose what to do about it, right? Is that what you're going to say?" A muscle clenched angrily in his jaw. "I already know that, Erwin. I know I should have kept my distance. But I was selfish and I fucked up and it nearly got her killed."

"You weren't the one who shot her."

"No, but I was distracted _by_ her, thinking about her." Levi glanced up at him, and Erwin could see the self-reproach in his eyes. "Mikasa took a bullet for me because I was distracted and unaware that I was being fucking shot at. You've known me a long time, Erwin. Have you ever once seen someone sneak up on me, seen someone take me by surprise?"

Erwin couldn't argue facts. "No," he answered. "I haven't."

If possible, Levi seemed to deflate even more. "I..." His eyes found Erwin's again. “I remember when you told me about Marie,” he went on, and Erwin felt a stirring of some old emotion in his chest at the sound of her name, "and about how you gave her up, told her she wasn’t right for you. I used to think you were just being a pretentious shithead – told you as much, too. But now I think I understand.” His voice took on a hollow timbre. “Men like us can’t afford to love, can’t afford to split our loyalties.” He pulled roughly at the badge on his jacket. “These fucking wings require nothing less than total devotion.” His face twisted with guilt. "I should have sent her away that night she knocked on my door. I should have said no the time before that too, and every time after."

Erwin was stunned. _So all of it is true_. All the rumors he’d heard, all of the stories he’d dismissed as the products of overactive imaginations and exaggerated hearsay. As Commander, Erwin knew he could reprimand Levi for getting involved with a subordinate, could strip him of his rank for his lack of discretion. But those thoughts never even crossed his mind as he stared at the man sitting so forlornly in the corner. All he felt was empathy – for really, who could understand Levi’s plight better than he could?

“Levi.” He waited to speak until the shorter man raised his head. “Listen to me. What I did – the choice I made regarding Marie – you don’t need to make the same one. I don’t disagree with you, per say; splitting loyalties usually only results in disloyalty to both. But there is one consequential difference between my situation and yours: Marie wasn’t a soldier. She wasn’t a part of this fight. Mikasa Ackerman is.”

Levi’s narrow eyes widened and his lips parted in surprise. It was clearly not the reaction he’d been expecting. And still he shook his head after a moment. “It doesn’t matter. It’s a conflict of interest.” There was a resigned sadness in his face, mirrored in the hunch of his shoulders. His hands had gone limp, no longer balled into fists but loosened in defeat. It all befit the posture of a man who had come to some kind of weary acceptance. “Tell me, Erwin, if Marie had joined the Corps, would that have made it easier or harder for you to do your duty?” He paused to let that sink in, though he wasn’t waiting for an answer. Both of them already knew what it was.

Levi sighed. “You told me long ago to offer my life in service to humanity, and I intend to do no less. I’ll forget my feelings for Mikasa Ackerman.”

Unbidden, Erwin was reminded of the day he'd left Marie and of the hurt in her lovely eyes as he'd said his final goodbye.

_It's not just your own heart you're crushing, Erwin. It's mine too. You're deciding for me, and I can't forgive you for that._

_It's not just your own heart._

“And what of Mikasa's feelings?” He asked softly.

Levi looked truly baffled, the crease in his brow deepening noticeably. “Her feelings?”

Erwin sighed. “Levi,” he said gently, “do you really think Mikasa would have taken a bullet for you – that she would have risked her life – if she didn’t feel the same way you feel? She has always acted in a way to protect the ones she loves. We've spoken of it before, in regards to Eren Jaeger.”

The color had slowly drained from Levi’s face as Erwin spoke, leaving him a few unhealthy shades paler than usual. Even the redness from Serena’s slap had faded to a chalky white. He stood up abruptly, his usually fluid movements jerky and stiff. “No,” he said. “No. She told me…” He seemed to falter for a moment, his brow furrowing as his certitude wavered. A cocktail of emotions played across his face, ranging from disbelief to pain. He turned away, and Erwin watched as his hands shook for a moment before his calm composure returned.

“Either way,” Levi said numbly, still facing away from him, “I’ll see that it ends.” He moved towards the door.

Erwin stopped him before he could leave, placing a restraining hand on his shoulder. “It’s your decision, of course, Levi, but whatever you choose to do, make sure it’s for yourself. Don’t do it for me or the Corps or anything else.” He let him go but called out to him as he began to turn the doorknob. “And Levi?" He spoke to him now as the Commander, his tone one of resolute authority. "When Annie Leonhardt wakes from her coma, you are not to lay another hand on her or even talk to her without my express permission. Understood?”

Levi gave one terse nod. “Aye, Erwin," he said, and he walked away.

 

**

Levi was already gone when Erwin emerged from the back room, but his redheaded friend - Serena, if he'd heard correctly - was rearranging items on one of the shelves in her shop, returned apparently from wherever she’d stormed off to. She was balancing on her tiptoes, her right arm stretching to reach something on a shelf above her head. Her determination didn’t waver, even as her fingertips kept swiping and missing.

Erwin hesitated briefly and then walked over, easily grabbing the jar from its perch. It was heavier than he’d expected, and he saw her arms buckle a little as he placed it in her hands.

“Thank you,” she said, her tone one of cool politeness.

Erwin smiled. “I find there are moments when even a one-handed man can still be of some use.”

She dropped down from her tiptoes, looking a little taken aback by his self-deprecating remark. Erwin noted that she wasn’t much shorter than him, really; she was certainly a good deal taller than Levi – one of the many glaring differences between them. _And yet they are friends - good friends._

“How do you know Levi?” His curiosity tempted him enough to ask.

She seemed reluctant to answer. “Levi and I are...childhood friends. I’ve known him a long time. Much longer than you have.”

There was a territorial undercurrent to her words that Erwin didn't miss. “Yes, I suppose that's true.” He paused, something occurring to him. “But that doesn’t mean I care about his well-being any less than you do. Believe me when I say that I have Levi's best interest at heart.”

“Is that so?” Her green eyes flashed as she cocked a brow at him in challenge. “Then if that’s the case, what did you tell him to do about his feelings for Mikasa?”

She had set him up for this question, he realized, had been waiting for him to trip over his earlier words. It again made him wonder as to the nature of her resentment towards him. “You have a very low opinion of me,” he stated.

Her eyes flickered away from him. “My opinion of you is irrelevant, Sir, and you haven’t answered my question. Though your evasion is answer enough.”

Her words had a sting to them, concealed beneath a carefully refined elegance. It was wit with the intent to bite the recipient. But Erwin had one advantage: he was not the draconian leader she thought he was.

“The only order I gave to Levi was to stay away from Annie Leonhardt. In regard to Ms. Ackerman, I told him he was free to make his own decision. I will support him, whatever he chooses to do.”

“Telling him he is free and meaning it are two different things,” came her fluid retort. She swept over to the table and placed the jar down, her fingers brushing aside the dust that had collected on its lid. When she looked up at him, she wore the expression of someone who expected to be disappointed. “What did you _mean_ , Commander Smith?”

“I meant what I said.” He straightened to his full height. "May I ask you something, Miss...?"

"Madame. Gringla, presently." Serena gave a haughty toss of her red curls. "And yes, ask away, only don't be surprised if I decline to answer you."

"Why do you find it so difficult to believe that I genuinely care about my Captain?"

"Because you are a puppet master."

Erwin frowned. "I don't follow you, Madame Gringla."

She proceeded to explain it to him. “The way I see it, you are a puppeteer, Erwin Smith, and a masterful one at that. But just because your puppets’ strings are long enough to give the illusion of freedom doesn’t mean your puppets don’t feel it when you tug. In the end, you are in control, regardless of how loosely you let the strings droop.”

He didn't much care for the analogy or for the distaste brimming just beneath the smoothness of her voice, but he couldn't deny that there was some truth in what she was saying. But she had the principle of it all wrong. "Perhaps I am a puppeteer, as you say. But I don't feel that being in control and caring are mutually exclusive things. Quite the contrary, in fact. I am responsible for the lives of all those under my command - friends and soldiers alike - and I do not take that responsibility lightly. I tug their strings to save their lives, when I can. I do not, however, interfere in their personal lives. I advised Levi to make his own decision, and there is no doubt in my mind he knows I meant that."

He left it at that, not feeling the need to add anything more.

She narrowed her eyes, but the action wasn't an angry one. It looked more like she was trying to understand him, like she was trying to reconcile the reality of him with whatever schema she'd already formed of him in her mind. 

Finally she nodded, the gesture a concession of sorts, and Erwin felt his eyes widen a little as she gave him a small smile. "Forgive me, Commander Smith," she said quietly. "It seems I may have misjudged you." She paused. "I lost someone I loved under your command years ago and I confess that I've always held you accountable for his death. He was forced to join the Survey Corps after you arrested him, you see, and he...he died on one of your expeditions." She crossed her arms defensively across her chest as she looked away from him. "I needed someone to blame.”

Erwin nodded. He understood; it wasn’t the first time he’d been the channel for someone’s grief. “And who better than the puppet master himself,” he murmured.

“More or less.” Serena gave him a sidelong glance, the first that contained no vestige of malice. “I was a puppet once, but I cut my strings. It’s how I came to meet Levi, actually.” She smiled, a nostalgic fondness settling across her face. “But that’s a story for another time.”

She walked around the table and came towards him, extending her left hand. “I owe you an apology and a thank you, Erwin Smith,” she said as he took her hand. Her grip was firm and confident. “The former for my treating you so rudely, and the latter for your managing to change my opinion of at least one puppet master.”

He opened his mouth to reply but anything he would have said was cut off by the rock that came hurtling through the window. It shattered the glass and landed with a cracking thud on the floor as both he and Serena jumped back instinctively.

Serena's nostrils flared in anger and she strode to the window. "Damn kids," she said as she peered through the broken glass. "Always playing their games too close to the buildings." She raised her voice. "Jerome, if that was you and your friends again you can rest assured I'm going to speak with your mother!"

She said something else, but Erwin had stopped listening. He'd stooped down and picked up the rock, turning it over in his hand. It was smooth and dark and relatively unremarkable... until he noticed the rune carved into it. He had never seen it before, but the fact that it was there changed the nature of the entire situation.

_This wasn't children._

He stood up. "Madame Gringla," he called urgently, "get away from—"

Serena yelped, red hair flying as she ducked to avoid the second rock that came hurtling through the already broken window. More glass shattered inward, and Erwin was there in two long strides, his arm circling her waist and pulling her out of the way of the falling glass shards. She weighed next to nothing compared to him, but her small frame thrashed in surprise at the sudden manhandling.

But it was fortunate that he had moved her. Seconds later, a third and fourth rock came flying through the window, the bigger of the two sailing through the space Serena's head had been moments before. It crashed onto the table and smashed into the jar Serena had placed there minutes ago before rolling once and stilling.

Erwin let her go, and the two of them stood there in mute disbelief for a minute, staring at the destruction.

Serena stumbled forward and grasped the rock that lay on the table, fingers shaking as she picked it up. "What the _hell_...?" She breathed. The rock fell back onto the table with a heavy thud as she dropped it. Serena turned to face him, and he could see true panic in her green eyes. "Check the others," she ordered, a little breathlessly. "See if there's anything carved on them."

Erwin didn't have to. "There was a symbol carved into the first rock. I assume it's carved on all of them."

Serena's face paled and before he could suggest that she sit down for a moment, she began racing around and picking up fallen projectiles, completely ignorant of the state of her personal things.

When she retrieved the fourth and final rock from where it had rolled beneath one of the bookshelves, she kept it clutched in her hand. "This," she said, shaking it in her fist, "was a warning." She licked her lips. "We need to find Levi, and you need to get Mikasa Ackerman and Annie Leonhardt out of Stohess immediately."

Erwin sensed instinctively that she knew what she was talking about. While he didn't recognize the symbol, it obviously meant something to her. "You know who did this?" He asked.

She nodded. "Yes." She grabbed a black coat from a closet in the corner and donned it, cinching the belt tightly around her waist. "Commander, I know you have no reason to trust me, but I need you to anyway. We have to leave. _Now_." She pocketed one of the rocks and marched towards the door. "I'll tell you everything once we are safely away from here."

With one last glance at the glass and debris littered all across her shop, Erwin followed her out the door, filled with a sense of foreboding.

 

**

The nostalgic smell of breakfast cooking was the first thing that crowded her awareness, the scent of eggs and toast wafting to her, reminding her of warmth and Carla and mornings spent laughing as Eren tried to flip omelets in the pan and only succeeded in flipping them out of it. Breakfast with the Jaegers, with her family...

_"Mikasa?"_

“Mikasa?” The voice was far away and close by at the same time, a whisper of disbelief that called her out of her memories, out of her slumber.

She blinked, eyes opening slowly, lashes parting to let in light that was much too bright after so much darkness. She closed them quickly, retreating, but the warm press of a hand against hers, the fingers that gripped onto her with tenacious strength brought her back and she forced herself to open her eyes, to let in the light.

Shapes came into focus, blended colors diffusing into separate hues until the person in front of her was pushed into perfect clarity.

He was exactly as she remembered—green eyes, intense gaze, brown hair sticking up in unruly tufts all about his head. It was a little longer than it had been the last time she’d seen him, though, the ends curling ever so slightly around his ears. He looked tired, too, as if he hadn’t slept for a while.

“…Eren?” She managed. Her voice was hoarse from disuse, the syllables grinding out slowly.

He smiled down at her, hands squeezing hers, green eyes shining. “Mikasa,” he breathed. “You’re really awake?”

She nodded, wincing at the stiffness of her neck. She could still smell eggs cooking and it was adding to her sense of disorientation. "Am I...are we late for breakfast?" That didn't seem right, though; now that her vision was clearing she could see that the light she'd thought was so bright only moments ago was in fact moonlight. "What time is it?"

Eren's smile widened and he laughed lightly. "Late. Really late. But Rosa's downstairs making breakfast food." He shifted. "Rosa works with Dr. Grayson. She's been keeping an eye on me the past few days. I like her; she makes eggs the way Mama used to make them." He looked down at his hands a little sheepishly. "I may have asked her for a late night snack."

Mikasa breathed in appreciatively. "It smells good," she murmured. It was still difficult to articulate her words.

"Yeah." Eren leaned closer to her, green eyes shimmering with emotion. He exhaled, air whistling through his teeth. “God, I was so worried, Mikasa. I thought I was going to lose you.”

She could hear the hurt in his voice and the instant need to comfort him made her reach out. She cupped his cheek in her free hand, frowning at how her fingers shook against his skin, at how the muscles of her arm seemed to seize up at the motion.

Sensing her discomfort, Eren covered her hand with his and lowered it to the bed. “Take it easy, okay? I’m fine. Now, anyway.”

“Now?”

Eren sighed. “Because of you, stupid.” The trace of humor in his voice died as his green eyes glazed with pain. “When I found out you’d been shot, I begged Commander Erwin to let me come here with him. I just…” His hands tightened around hers. “We’ve lost everyone, Mikasa. When Armin… when Armin died last year I didn’t think it could get any worse. Until last week.” He swallowed thickly. “I don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t woken up.”

Mikasa felt tears flood her eyes at the mention of Armin. _Eren, Mikasa, Armin._ It had always been the three of them, ever since they’d been children boasting about all the things they would do when they got older. Armin had been the dreamer, the planner, the visionary, and in many ways, he'd also been the core of their ragtag trio. He’d been there for Eren through every growing pain and been a reassuring presence in her own life ever since the Jaegers had taken her in. She and Eren had known what a rare person he was, had protected him above everyone else, unwilling to lose him. _And yet…_

She blinked her tears away. “Don’t talk like that. I did wake up.”

“Yeah. After nine days.”

She hadn’t been expecting that. “I was unconscious for nine _days_?” Anything could have happened in that span of time. What had she missed? She tried to sit up, wheezing as her body protested the action. Eren helped her, his arms supporting her back and keeping her steady while he propped a few pillows behind her.

“Nine days?” She repeated. Everything came back in a rush: the docks, Annie, Levi… Her eyes widened and she clutched at Eren’s hands. “What happened after I was shot?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know all the details—”

“Tell me what you do know.”

“Annie is back in custody.” He cracked over her name with a little too much emphasis, unable to keep the emotion out of his voice. “Or, she will be, when the doctors release her to the Commander. No one will tell me where she is. I think Commander Erwin is the only one who knows.” He shook his head, anger and hurt clouding his features. “We have her again and I still can’t talk to her, still can’t get answers.”

Mikasa frowned, but before she could ask how and why, Eren continued, “Heichou found her. She must have put up a fight, because he shot her five times—with arrows.” He shuddered. “Poison-tipped arrows.”

The shock of that news was immense, and yet Mikasa didn’t have time to process it because Eren was looking at her with the strangest expression and it made her frown. “What is it?” She asked.

“I heard that Annie wasn't aiming at you, that you weren't her target." He looked incredulous. "Did you really take a bullet for Levi Heichou?”

She licked her lips, not sure how honest she should be. Eren was emotionally fragile, after all, and she didn’t know what he would think of the truth. “Is that what he told you?”

He shook his head. “No—I haven’t seen him since I got here. It’s what Commander Erwin said.” He didn’t let up. “Is it true?”

“It...is.” She could give him that much.

Eren's brows knitted together. “But you hate him."

"No, I don't." She didn't think she could hate him now even if she wanted to, even if she had a reason to. 

Eren was staring at her, clearly trying to puzzle out the deeper meaning behind that admittance, and it made Mikasa shift uncomfortably. She wasn't ready to talk about her feelings with him; not yet, anyway. "I don't want to talk about what happened to me right now, Eren. I just woke up."

"Yeah, no, I'm sorry." He smiled, fleeting but warm. "I don't want to make you relive something that must have been awful. I'm just glad you're okay." He exhaled, seriousness settling across his features. "You could have died, Mikasa. You almost did.” His voice held the heavy gravity of someone who’d seen too much loss in his short life.

“But I didn’t die.” _I saved Levi, and I didn't die_ _._ To anyone else that simple fact might not be cause for celebration, but as she mulled over her own words, Mikasa realized how happy they made her. Because maybe, for _once_ , she’d managed to break the pattern of ongoing tragedy in her life. She smiled. “I didn’t die, and I’m going to be fine.”

Eren chuckled, a ray of warmth softening his features. “I believe that,” he agreed. He returned her smile, hands once again seeking hers. He clasped them tightly. “Promise you won’t ever worry me like that again?”

She gave him a look, eyebrows rising towards her hairline. “Aren’t you the one always saying that _I_ worry too much? Maybe you shouldn’t be so concerned.”

He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, but you worry about me all the time. It’s like you think I’m gonna impale myself on my own gear or something.” He reached out and gently poked her in the forehead. “I’m not the one propped up in bed recovering from a bullet wound, fractured ribs, and a punctured lung.”

“Not this time,” she rebutted, even though she was surprised to learn just how many injuries she’d sustained. It explained why each inhale took a bit more effort than she was used to and why each exhale was accompanied by a hint of pain in her chest.

Eren snorted. “You’re impossible.” He stood up. “I’m going to go get Dr. Grayson. He can explain all the medical stuff to you. I don’t really understand it.” He paused, green eyes holding hers with a tenderness so reminiscent of Carla that Mikasa felt an ache of longing for the past, heightened by the smells of breakfast still drifting up from the kitchen.

“I love you, Mikasa. Don’t ever think I don’t.”

Her heart swelled. “I love you too, Eren.”

She leaned back against the pillows, feeling a moment of true contentment. _For once, everything is good._

But the frightened scream that shattered her calm proved otherwise.

Eren ran to the door and Mikasa bolted upright, gasping at the instant flare of pain in her muscles. She watched as Eren stepped out into the hallway and momentarily disappeared from view.

"Rosa?!" She heard him shout.

There was another scream, this one more bloodcurdling than the first, followed by the sound of shattering china and something heavy hitting the ground.

Mikasa swung her legs over the side of the bed, a fine sheen of sweat already dampening her skin at the simple movement.

Eren appeared in the doorway again, eyes wild. "Mikasa, you stay put. I'll handle it."

"No, Eren, wait—!" But he was already gone.

 _I need to move._ Mikasa grit her teeth and tried to stand, instantly succumbing to a wave of dizziness. Now, in addition to the screams coming from downstairs, she could also hear signs of a struggle. She forced her feet to move, shuffling one in front of the other as she seethed with frustration. Her legs buckled when she was almost to the door and she fell hard, head spinning and every inhale much too shallow.

 _No!_ She screamed at herself. _Get up, get up! Help him!_

But her body simply couldn't do it, and Mikasa experienced something she hadn't felt since she was nine years old.

Helplessness. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realize there is basically zero interaction between our Ackerman duo in this chapter, and I'm sorry. I promise that it will not be an enduring trend!!
> 
> Despite that, I hope this was still enjoyable to read.


	9. There Are No Happy Endings

_There are too many of them_.

That was the first thing Eren noticed when he entered the doctor’s kitchen. Donned in black and wielding long, serrated knives, the six men were fanned out around the room, masked faces fixed on him.

The second thing he noticed was Rosa’s crumpled body, sprawled on the floor in a spreading pool of her own blood. She was lying facedown, limbs twisted awkwardly beneath her, and Eren couldn’t tell if she was still alive. The eggs she'd been cooking were still on the stove, burning in the pan.

“Bastards,” he breathed, his hands starting to shake as his initial shock wore off. He looked from one unknown assailant to the next, glaring at the black, expressionless masks that hid any guess he could've made as to their identities. “Why?” He shouted raggedly. “Why?”

None of them offered a verbal answer, but at his words, they circled around him, trapping him in the middle of the room and blocking off the exits.

Eren heard motion from one of the men behind him and he whipped around, ducking just as the man’s serrated blade arced through the air above his head. Gritting his teeth, he barreled into the man, knocking him back into one of the others with enough force to send all three of them hurtling towards the floor.

It was then that Dr. Grayson came into the room, armed with a hunting rifle. "Rosa!" He cried, face chalky with shock as he saw her bloodied form. " _Monsters_! Get out of my house!" He cocked his gun, his steady hands belying his advanced age. "And leave that boy alone!" He shouted, voice booming. He fired off a shot, expertly nailing one of the assailants on the opposite side of the room. The man hit the cabinets at his back with a sickening thud, clutching at his chest as he fell.

Before Dr. Grayson could line up another shot, one of the masked men spun up behind him, serrated knife gleaming. "Behind you!" Eren screamed, eyes going wide, but he was still grappling with his opponents on the ground, unable to help the doctor.

There was a brief struggle, but Dr. Grayson was older and slower than his opponent, and in close combat, a knife was the more effective weapon. The masked man stabbed at the doctor's hand and Dr. Grayson yelped, the rifle clattering to the floor. He tried to turn around but the man at his back restrained him, and Eren knew what would happen even before the man grabbed the doctor’s jaw in his gloved hand and yanked his head up to expose his throat.

“ _No_!” He cried, eyes squeezing shut as the attacker viciously slashed the knife across the doctor’s throat.

Fueled by rage and powered by adrenaline, Eren managed to wrest the knife from his nearest opponent, twisting the blade around in the man’s hand. The man struggled as Eren pushed the blade towards his heart, screaming for help, but his scream was cut off as Eren shoved the blade into his chest all the way to the hilt. He twisted it once and then lurched to his feet, shaking. He could hear the blood pulsing in his ears, the hot tide of rage that infused his body with purpose beginning to spiral out of control.

Another man was on him before he had time to reel in his emotions, and as Eren fought him off, he could feel his tenuous grasp of self-restraint dwindling.

He grit his teeth, breathing harshly as he dodged the swipe of the blade.

From his periphery, he could see two of the men making their way towards the stairs. A flush of alarm spread through him.

_Mikasa!_

She was still upstairs, defenseless. If they reached her before he did…

No. He wouldn’t let that happen. He would _never_ let that happen.

With new determination, he blocked every parry his attacker threw at him, all the while backing the man into a corner. The second his opponent gave him an opening, Eren attacked, his fist making contact with the man’s face. There was a satisfying crunch, and Eren saw red. Not just the red of the blood on his knuckles, but the red simmering beneath the confines of his own skin, bubbling and boiling in warning of how close he was to losing himself, of how badly he wanted to shift…

 _Rosa_ , the beast within him screamed. _Dr. Grayson_ , it howled. _Mikasa_ , it roared.

Eren could see nothing but red anymore.

_I’ll make them pay. I’ll make them all pay._

The next time the man lunged forward with the knife, Eren was ready. He grabbed him by the wrist as he twisted out of the way and used his other hand to strike at his neck. The man jerked back, wheezing at the force of the blow, and his grip on the knife loosened. Eren instantly grabbed it from him, and, with quick dexterity, plunged it into the man’s chest.

The man jerked once and collapsed forward and Eren shoved him off, still seething with rage.

Before he could retrieve the weapon, he was lifted off of his feet, an arm snaking around his neck and pulling him up. Eren yelled, struggling as the larger man yanked him roughly by the neck. Unlike the others, this masked attacker was built like a bull, and the strength of his arm was enough to choke Eren. Eren kicked, coughing, green eyes going wide as he caught sight of the blade in the man’s other hand. He struggled harder, knowing he had to get free.

But the man was just too strong. His arm pushed at Eren's jaw, shoving it up, and Eren had a flashback of what had happened to Dr. Grayson.

“No!” He screamed as the blade came flashing down, rage and terror flooding him.

Suddenly the man sputtered, the knife clattering to the ground instead of cutting Eren’s throat, and Eren felt the arm around his neck slackening as the man stumbled back. He spun around and started, green eyes widening in disbelief as he saw his rescuer.

“Heichou!”

Captain Levi knocked the man to the floor in three quick blows, his own bloodied knife flashing wickedly as he brought it down. The man grunted once and then stilled, lifeless.

Eren was still shaking, breaths coming in ragged gasps as he fought to regain control of himself. Levi strode over and gripped his shoulder. “Deep breaths,” he commanded, even as his eyes darted around the room, lingering on each body.

“But Heichou—”

“Deep breaths, Jaeger. You need to calm down.”

But Eren couldn’t calm down. “There are more of them upstairs. Mikasa—”

Levi visibly started at her name. “Wait here,” he ordered and then he was moving with blinding speed towards the stairs.

Eren did as instructed, focusing on lengthening his inhales and exhales, listening as the rush of blood in his ears began to quiet. He slumped against the counter, feeling spent, worry gnawing at him.

What if Mikasa hadn’t been able to defend herself? What if they’d killed her? And who the hell were _they_ anyway? And why had they come? It all seemed so senseless, so unprovoked.

Involuntarily, his gaze moved towards Dr. Grayson. The elderly man was pale in death, the wicked laceration across his throat the only bloom of color left. His glasses had cracked on the floor when he'd fallen, but Eren could still see his eyes staring unseeingly from behind the ruined lenses. 

 _These were decent people_ , he thought, vestiges of his earlier rage still sending tremors through his body. He clenched his hands into fists. _They didn't deserve this. They were just ordinary people._

Bile rose in his throat, and he stumbled to the sink just as the he began to retch, the scant contents of his stomach burning as they came back up.

He coughed raggedly once he was done and turned the faucet on with a shaking hand, gulping down a few mouthfuls of water that he thankfully managed to keep down.

And the smell of burning food reached him again, reminding him...

"Rosa!" His nausea and anger were forgotten in a heartbeat as he hurried to her side, kneeling down on the ground beside her. His pants began to soak with blood but he didn't care. "Please be alive," he whispered. He shifted her gingerly, cradling her head as he turned her onto her back. He pressed two fingers against her neck, feeling for a pulse.

And it was there, faint but present beneath his fingertips. She was breathing, too, he ascertained as he held a hand in front of her mouth. 

_She's alive._

As ridiculous as it was, a choked laugh bubbled up from his throat, the sound harsh to his ears but a relief nonetheless. "You're a tough lady, Rosa," he said, truly amazed. She'd suffered knife wounds to her chest and side, and yet she was somehow still clinging to life. And Eren wasn't about to let her die.

"I'm gonna get you bandaged up. I promise you're going to be okay."

He would need to raid the doctor's supplies, but he was confident he could find everything he needed. He began to go through a mental inventory of items, but his thoughts were interrupted when Levi strode back into the kitchen.

His eyes were blazing. “She’s gone,” he said before Eren could even ask. “They must have taken her.” He bent down and picked up one of the serrated knives, wiping it clean on the sleeve of one of the dead men. He stood up and paused as he noticed Eren cradling the wounded woman. "She's alive?" He asked.

Eren nodded.

"Good." He tucked the blade into his belt. "Do you think you can help her?"

Eren nodded again, not trusting his voice to be steady. The news about Mikasa was too much to handle.

_If anything happens to her it will be my fault. I didn't protect her. It's my fault.  
_

"Eren." The unexpected gentleness in the Captain's voice made him look up.

Levi had crouched down near him, putting them at eye level. "This had nothing to do with you," he stated, as if he'd known what Eren had been thinking. "None of this is your fault, so let it go. Focus on helping Rosa." He stood up, the gentleness draining from his eyes faster than sand through a sieve, steely determination flashing in its place. "Stay here and do what you can, and leave the rest of these dogs to me."

Eren found his voice. "You're... going after them?" Hope flowered within him. "To find Mikasa?"

"Yes," he vowed. "I'll find her. And I'll find whoever else was involved in _this_."

Levi tucked another one of the blades into his boot and straightened, looking just as lethal and terrifying as he did when cutting down Titans.

"I'll find them," he said again, and Eren believed him.

 

**

Mikasa couldn’t see anything when she woke up. Everything was dark.

Consciousness returned to her with a jolt, and she sucked in a breath against the wash of pain that flooded every inch of her body, the sound muffled by the gag in her mouth. She could barely swallow because of the way it was jammed behind her teeth, and her jaw was aching. The wadded up rag was coarse against her tongue, and her chapped lips were cracking where they were stretched back by the knot securing the gag in place. And yet despite that, the darkness was worse. She had no idea where she was and no idea who had taken her, and being unable to even discern the layout of the space around her was unnerving. She blinked a few times, forcing her eyes to adjust to her surroundings, trying not to panic at the pitch-black nothingness around her.

_Just breathe, Mikasa. Breathe and focus._

Her body was a mass of aches and fresh bruises, many of them throbbing uncomfortably where they were pressed into the stone floor she was stretched out on. Though she couldn’t yet see them, she could feel the burn of the ropes chafing her ankles and the cold steel of the cuffs locked around her wrists. A few tugs and twists made it very clear she wouldn’t be able to get out of them using brute strength alone; the ropes were tight and the cuffs were heavy and solid, the chain they were anchored to clanking as she tried to move her hands.

A trickle of sweat dripped from her temple onto the floor from the strain of her efforts and Mikasa groaned, ceasing to yank on her bindings.

Her surroundings were finally starting to gain clarity, enough so that Mikasa was able to discern the walls around her and the outline of a solitary door on the wall opposite where she was chained.

Working up the energy, she shifted her body so that she was more on her side, facing the door, ignoring the way pain flared up in her bruised hip as it came into contact with the hard stone floor.

Unlike the rest of the room, the door was made of wood, and the faint glow beneath its uneven bottom was casting a few inches of pitiful light onto the floor of her cell. She kept her focus trained on that sliver of light, vigilantly waiting for some shadow to eclipse it.

 _Whoever put me here will be back._ That was an undoubted fact; if they had wanted to kill her, they would have done so back at the doctor’s house.

_And it would have been easy._

The truth of that made Mikasa want to curl in on herself in shame. Yes, she’d fought back when the two masked men had come barging into her room, clawing and kicking and even managing to knock one of them off of his feet, but in the end her anemic strength had betrayed her. Before she’d ever even managed to stand, the larger man had grabbed her head in his hands and bashed it against the floor, sending her into oblivion.

And now she was trussed up and defenseless, helpless to stop whatever her kidnappers had in store for her.

Two shadows appeared at the crack in the door. Mikasa scooted back instinctively as a key was turned in the lock and the door swung inward, squinting against the sudden garish light.

A man walked into her cell, and although her attackers had been wearing masks, Mikasa knew from this man’s broad, imposing frame that he had not been one of them. Cold, dark eyes gleamed at her from beneath heavy brows as he walked towards her, a small smile curling his thin lips. “My, my, what a pretty little thing they snagged,” he said, bending over to run a finger down her face.

Mikasa jerked away from his touch, her eyes flashing vehemently.

The man laughed, and, smile never faltering, struck her across the face with the back of his hand.

Mikasa gasped into the gag, her face stinging.

“A little fight is a good thing, but can the attitude, sweetheart. I’ll do whatever I want anyway, so you might as well be polite.”

He jerked her up by the hair so roughly that Mikasa felt tears prick her eyes. “Now,” he said, terribly conversational, “my boys fucked up. They were supposed to bring me the shifter and they brought me _you_ instead. Don’t get me wrong – you’re a real prize, love, but not the girl I need at the moment. So here’s what’s going to happen: I’m going to take your gag out and you’re going to tell me where your former classmate is, or all the boys are gonna get a taste of what real Oriental pussy feels like.” He yanked her head closer to him. “And I’ll be the first to try you out,” he whispered, his breath hot against her ear.

Mikasa shuddered despite herself, fear completely overcoming her for a moment. But by the time he’d undone the knot from the gag and removed the damp rag from her mouth, a vestige of her old will had returned. “I don’t know what shifter you’re talking about,” she rasped, voice nearly hoarse from the gag.

He slapped her again, hitting the same spot as before, and Mikasa had to bite her lip to keep from crying out. She imagined her face would be a purple, swollen mess by morning – if, of course, she was still alive by then.

“What did I say about the attitude?” He sighed, as if he were a disappointed parent reprimanding a disobedient child. “Let’s try again. I know who you are, Mikasa Ackerman, just as I know that you graduated in the same class as the Titan shifter Annie Leonhardt. I also know that two weeks ago you and that Captain had a confrontation with her, and while I’m not sure of all the details, I know both of you girls were placed in a doctor’s care. _Different_ doctors, mind you, which was pretty damn inconvenient since we only got the one location. We didn’t know which girl we’d find.” He patted her once on the head. “Turns out it was you.” His tone was amiable again, rich and smooth as honey. “Now. Be a good girl and tell me what I need to know.”

Mikasa swallowed hard. His words wrapped around her like overly sweet poison, cloying and nauseating, and when his hand grazed softly over her bare shoulder, the repressed fears of her nine-year-old self returned in stark detail. She stared at his mud-caked boots. “I was in a coma. I…I don’t know anything. That’s the truth.”

He stood abruptly, and for the first time, the timbre of his voice matched the ice in his eyes. “Tut-tut, Mikasa,” he said coldly. “That’s _not_ the answer I was looking for.” He turned away and walked towards the door, only sparing her a glance as he stepped into the hallway. “I’ll be back soon with my friends.” He licked his lips in a lascivious pantomime. “Mmm…it’s been a while since we’ve had such a pretty fuck toy. You might be useless for information, but I know you'll give us a good time.” He slammed the door.

Mikasa started dry heaving, her limbs quaking as she stared at the closed door.

All her training, all her strength, and _still_ she ended up here? She could slay Titans but she was helpless to stop a few dirty men from having their way with her?

She pounded her fists into the stone.

“ _No,”_ she whispered once the tremors started to die down, and then again, with more conviction. “No.”

Eren might not be there to rescue her like he had when they were children, but she would not – she would _never_ – resign herself to such a fate. _I will fight, and I will win._

She just had to free herself first.

With renewed determination she began to pull on her restraints, resolutely ignoring the pain that shot through her straining muscles. She managed to twist herself in such a way that her chained hands could reach the ropes at her feet, and her fingers started working on the knots. Every time the metal cuffs cut into her skin she just clenched her teeth and continued, doggedly unrelenting until _at last_ the knots came undone and she kicked her feet free of the ropes.

She allowed herself a small smile of satisfaction before turning to the problem of the cuffs. Unlike the ropes, there was no easy way to get her hands free, but if she was to have any chance at all of defending herself, she had to find a way.

_Start with the chain and work from there, brat._

The burst of inspiration came to her in the caustic voice she’d come to respect above all others, and even though Mikasa knew it was just a projection of her own thoughts, hearing it in his voice (even if it was only in her own head) was a comfort.

She crouched up, sitting back on her haunches, and, grabbing the chain in both hands, leaned back as far as she could, using her bodyweight as leverage. She began to rock back and forth, gaining momentum, yanking harder each time until the nails pulled free from the base of the chain with a rusted groan and she went flying back, hitting the ground hard. Pain shot up from her backside but Mikasa didn’t care; she was one step closer to freedom.

But the cuffs were still on, and she had no way of getting them off. No matter how much she twisted and contorted her hands, they were still too large to squeeze through. Precious minutes passed and she accomplished nothing except to deepen the red, jagged cuts around her wrists. She frowned down at her hands, wracking her brain for some other tactic, for something she hadn’t thought of.

She was still thinking when she heard the sound of voices and approaching footsteps.

And it was in that moment of fresh panic before the key was fitted into the lock that Mikasa figured out what she had to do.

 

**

Serena couldn’t remember the last time she’d run so much at one time, and by the time she reached the Commander where he was standing beneath the eave of a nondescript building, her hair was a whirlwind of frizz around her head and her cheeks were red from exertion. She took a few moments to catch her breath, grateful that the blonde man gave her time to collect herself before diving in with questions. Etiquette usually fell by the wayside under tense circumstances, but apparently the Commander wasn’t one to follow trends.

“I found Levi,” she said at length, still a little breathless. “Either he’s on his way to Dr. Grayson’s now to get your subordinates, or he’s already there.”

“Did you have time to explain the situation?”

Serena shook her head. “Not fully. He knows enough to understand how gravely important it is that all of you leave Stohess, though.”

The Commander sighed, and Serena could hear the weariness in his voice. “I thought I’d seen it all,” he said quietly. “But this…” His blue eyes hardened. “People are fools.”

“And these particular people are _righteous_ fools,” Serena added. “Fools with a cause.”

“Which makes them more dangerous.”

It was an astute comment, and an unfortunately accurate one. Serena had seen and heard enough over the years to know that aside from having nothing to lose, the next best motivator for aggressive, radical action was having a supposed cause.

The Commander glanced down at her. “Do you know how long this cult has existed?” He asked.

Serena pursed her lips, thinking. “It’s hard to say exactly; the Olympians have been around nearly since the Walls went up, but they’ve changed form many times over the years. This latest batch of fundamentalists has been gaining a following for maybe a decade or so – ever since the fall of Shinganshina.”

The Commander nodded, processing. “I suppose that makes sense. Witnessing the destruction left by the Colossal and Armored Titans no doubt fueled their cause.”

It was another astute comment, and Serena found it difficult to suppress a sudden admiration for the man’s intelligence. He’d only just learned of the cult of shifter-worshippers who called themselves Olympians and already he was adapting to the knowledge and making sound inferences about the group’s motivations. _It is no wonder he climbed the ranks so quickly._ Despite her predisposed - and now waning - dislike for him, there was no denying that Commander Smith was capable. 

_Perhaps that’s why Levi has been so loyal to him all of these years._

The sound of wheels and hooves around the corner had both of them looking, and Serena watched as a carriage pulled by a single horse made its way down the street. The driver pulled it to a stop in front of them and was out of his seat and around the carriage in a flash. He was young and lanky, no doubt a recruit fresh from training, and his Police uniform hung awkwardly off of his spare frame.

“Commander,” he said, offering a quick salute. “The girl’s in there,” he said, nodding towards the carriage, “cuffed as per your orders. The doctor said he would follow in a day or two. He packed a bag of supplies with detailed instructions in the meantime, and he sends his assurances that the poison hasn’t yet worked itself through her system and that she should remain in her comatose state for at least another few days. I put the supplies in the back with her.”

“Good work, Soldier,” Erwin said. “I will be sure to pass along a good word to Commander Dawk once we get to Corps headquarters.”

The man practically beamed. “Thank you, Sir. I’m ready to go whenever you are.”

“We’ll leave momentarily.” He turned to Serena, his blue eyes alight with genuine gratitude. “But before I go, please let me express my thanks, Madame Gringla. If, as you guessed, the Olympians’ main objective was to capture a Titan shifter and use them to destroy the city, there is no telling how many lives you saved tonight. I am indebted to you.”

Serena was uncharacteristically at a loss for words. She cleared her throat. “That is…generous of you to say, but untrue. I only played a small part in this, and the situation will only truly be averted once Annie Leonhardt is ensconced deep within your headquarters.”

To her surprise, Erwin smiled. “I’m beginning to see why you and Levi are friends,” he said. “Neither of you seems able to accept praise at face value.” He sighed, straightening up. “But you are right: this isn’t over yet.” He paused. “Lingering in Stohess might not be wise, Madame Gringla. Do not forget that members of this cult also targeted you. You are more than welcome to accompany me back to base if you’d feel safer being out of the city for a few days.”

He presented his offer with such fluidity that Serena almost accepted. _This man is magnetic. A few days in his company and I wouldn’t be surprised to find myself in uniform and ready to fly into battle._ Her lips curled up in a small smile. “Thank you, but I must decline. I have my own hideaways here in Stohess if I should need to make myself scarce, although I doubt the Olympians will bother tracking me down. I’m just a fortune-teller, after all.”

The Commander didn’t seem to quite believe that, his blue eyes regarding her as if trying to puzzle her out. “A very well-informed fortune-teller, it seems.”

Serena flashed him an enigmatic grin. “Or perhaps I’m the real deal.”

He cocked a brow. “Perhaps.” He extended his hand and Serena grasped it. “I hope we meet again, Madame Gringla. Stay safe.”

Serena stepped back and watched as he climbed into the back of the carriage and rapped twice on the compartment separating him from the driver. A moment later the carriage jolted forward and disappeared down the street, and Serena watched until it was out of sight.

 

**

When the door of her cell opened, Mikasa was stretched out on the floor as she had been earlier, propped up on her side with her eyes closed. The rope was circled loosely around her feet, the extra length of it hidden behind the slope of her legs, and she had placed her still-cuffed hand above the newly freed one, giving the illusion that they were still chained together. Her broken thumb rested awkwardly against her palm.

Breaking it had been excruciating, but it had allowed her hand to slip through the unyielding metal cuff - a drastic measure, perhaps, but worth the pain. Now she at least had a fighting chance of dealing with her kidnappers.

“She pass out again or something?” One of the men asked.

“Looks like it.” She heard a snicker. “How badly did you scare her, Julius?”

“Just enough to make her tremble.” Mikasa could hear the smile in his voice, and the honeyed intonation of it made her sick. “C’mon boys, we have to have our fun before Salazar gets here.”

Mikasa remained perfectly still even as she readied herself to attack. _Like a Venus flytrap,_ she thought, _I'll let them come to me. I'll wait until they get close and then…_

The second she felt a hand on her arm, Mikasa acted. Her eyes flew open and she scissored her legs, slamming them into the back of the man’s knees. His eyes widened in shock as he stumbled and Mikasa surged up, grabbing the chain attached to the cuffs between her hands and wrapping it around his neck as he fell. She yanked hard and backed them into the wall as he scrambled, using the solid surface for leverage as her hands tightened. Even with a broken thumb, she was able to squeeze the chain with enough force to cut off his air.

The other two men finally reacted, snapping out of their shock. Julius unsheathed a knife from his belt while the other man charged her. “Will!” He shouted. “Let him go, you bitch!”

“ _I’m_ the bitch?” Mikasa snarled, surprised at the anger in her own voice. She pulled harder, muscles straining as the man thrashed against her. But then his friend was there, and Mikasa wasn’t strong enough to hold the one man and fight the other, and her grip faltered. Will yanked on the chain and broke free, turning as he did. Mikasa elbowed him, hard, and he stuttered back. “Grab her, Hex,” he spat.

Hex charged her, his arms going around her waist and hoisting her bodily off the ground. Mikasa twisted, feeling an awful burn as the stitches on her chest ripped free. She continued to struggle, but Hex only tightened his grip on her.

Desperate, Mikasa leaned down and bit him, cringing at the metallic taste of blood that flooded her mouth as her teeth broke skin. Hex dropped her, screaming curses, and before Mikasa could scramble to her hands and knees, Julius stomped on her back. The force of his foot knocked her flat on the stones and stole the air from her lungs.

“Resourceful little thing, aren’t you?” Julius grabbed her by the throat and picked her up, shaking her. “What did I tell you about your attitude?”

Mikasa couldn’t have responded even if she’d been inclined to, not with the way his fingers were squeezing her throat. She opened her mouth, desperately trying to suck in air, but her windpipe was too constricted. Panicking, she scratched at him, nails digging into the skin of his hand and wrist.

“Stubborn little bitch,” he cursed. He flung her against the wall and Mikasa heard something crack. Her head spun.

Julius renewed his grip on her throat, nearly strangling her. “Hex, come here and hold her. I want to knock her around a bit.” He leered at Mikasa. “Should have known you’d like it rough.”

Mikasa spit in his face, earning her a vicious slap. “Hex!” Julius called. “What the hell are you—?”

He froze, and Mikasa craned her neck to see what had stopped him.

Her heart stuttered. _Levi!_

The Captain pulled his knife from Hex’s chest and stood, bangs hiding his eyes. “I don’t think your friend is in any condition to help you,” he said to Julius. There was murder in his voice.

For all Julius’ awful traits, cowardice was not one of them. He let Mikasa go and brandished his own knife, approaching Levi with calm steps. “Question is,” he said, “who’s going to help _you_?”

His attack was silent, but Levi evaded the knife easily enough. Julius looked utterly surprised for a moment, but then he attacked again, adapting to Levi’s speed.

Mikasa was watching, barely able to hold herself steady against the wall, when she saw Will – the man she had choked with her chains. He was coming up to Levi from behind, the red necklace of metal indentations Mikasa had given him shining on his pale skin almost as brightly as the gleam of the knife in his hand.

Mikasa reeled away from the safety of the wall and ran towards him, crashing into him as he lifted his blade to attack. They fell to the floor, and Mikasa fought tooth and nail to pry the knife from his fingers, clawing and biting until he relinquished the blade to her. She held it against his throat, her breath slowing to a calm tempo, and then she pulled the knife across his neck, feeling not even a twinge of remorse as the light died in his eyes.

She clambered off of him and turned just in time to see Levi catch Julius by surprise and deal him a fatal blow. The man’s eyes bulged, mouth opening in anger and shock, and then he fell to the ground at Levi’s feet, dead.

And then silence reigned in place of struggle.

They stood there for a moment, staring at each other, and Mikasa felt a strange sense of calm flood her tired limbs, as if just the sight of him was enough to assure her that she was safe again.

"Heichou..." Her voice cracked. She took a step towards him and her knees began to wobble, took one more step and started to stumble.

And for the second time since they’d gotten to Stohess, Levi caught her before she could fall.

 

**

“I don’t even know who they were,” Mikasa murmured, frowning as she looked around the simply furnished study, her eyes lingering on the strangely shaped clock nailed above one of the large windows.

The downstairs was a vast improvement from the dungeon-like attic she’d been chained in, the stone floors traded for carpet and wood and the austere bareness traded for chairs, bookshelves, and paintings hung on wallpapered walls.

They hadn't tarried long upstairs, just long enough for Levi to rummage in Julius' pockets to retrieve the key and free her other hand from the remaining cuff. He hadn't asked about her broken thumb, although he'd stared at it silently for a moment before giving her a look that made it clear he knew why she had broken it. Desperation could fuel one to do desperate things, after all, and both of them knew what it felt like to be backed into a corner with no painless options left.

So instead of asking her for details, Levi had picked her up and carried her down the stairs, and Mikasa had been too exhausted to object or even be embarrassed about it. Now she was propped up on the large center table in the study, her legs dangling limply off the side, Levi standing between them as he cleaned her cuts and carefully bandaged her up.

He’d found medical supplies in one of the other rooms, along with towels and gauze, a length of which he was currently wrapping around her upper arm. “I don’t know much more than you do,” he said as he finished dressing the wound. “As soon as Serena told me some fucking cult was targeting you, I…” He paused, eyes flickering up to hers before dropping back down, and Mikasa’s heart lurched at the hint of emotion she watched him beat down.

“They weren’t really targeting me," she replied, frowning. " _Julius_ —” she spoke the name like a curse “—said they were after Annie.”

Levi gently pinned the binding in place around her arm and set the gauze aside. “Ah,” he said. “Because she’s a shifter. Serena did mention they have some master plan revolving around one of them.”

_They needed a shifter…_

Mikasa bolted up, nearly falling off the table. Levi cursed, steadying her before she could topple over.

“What about Eren?" The words came out in a rush. "He’s a shifter, they could have—”

“Oi. Settle down. Eren’s safe – he stayed behind to help Rosa. Whatever this cult’s agenda was, they must not have known he was a shifter. When I got there they were trying to kill him, not kidnap him.”

Mikasa stiffened. “Is he hurt?”

Levi scoffed. “Hardly a scratch. Your damn boyfriend's got nine lives and a shit ton of luck. Which is more than we can say for you," he added as he graced her with a displeased once-over. " _Tch_. Is there any inch of you that _isn't_ injured?”

"My toes feel fine."

Levi stared at her in silence for a minute, eyes wide, and then – just barely – a hint of a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. He shook his head in mock aggravation. "Brat. Don't think that my playing nursemaid to you is an excuse for you to be cheeky. I'm still your superior, in case you needed reminding."

His teasing tone engendered a smile of her own. "Please forgive my insubordination, Heichou. It appears my manners are still in a coma."

"If that's your way of implying that you had any manners to begin with, you can stow it, Ackerman. You're the single rudest cadet in the whole bloody Corps."

"Hardly. I'm only rude to you."

"Oh?" He arched a brow. "And why is that?"

"All trainees are taught to emulate their Squad Leaders to the best of their ability," she answered smoothly, tinging her voice with innocent obedience. "I was only trying to live up to your example, Heichou."

"Keep up the snide remarks, Ackerman, and I swear to God you're going to be shoveling horse shit for the remainder of your natural life."

Mikasa smirked. "With all due respect, Heichou, you're making my point for me."

"Shut up."

The gruffness of his answer made her laugh, but she paid the price for her ebullience a moment later as the laughter caused her ribs and chest to ache. She winced, clutching at her sides, and just like that, their buoyant mood sank back to seriousness.

Levi scowled as he looked down at the mess of blood seeping through the soiled bandages on her chest. “You tore the stitches," he noted unhappily. "I’m going to have to redo them."

Mikasa cringed at the idea. “I feel okay at the moment. I can wait for the doctor.”

“No, you can't. He was killed.”

“Oh.” Mikasa felt her stomach sinking. _How many people paid the price tonight because I wasn’t strong enough to fight?_ It was a sobering thought. _I should have pushed myself_ _harder_. If she’d fought alongside Eren, maybe the doctor would still be alive.

Apparently Levi could read the guilt on her face. “His death isn’t on your head, Mikasa,” he said. “Don’t shift the blame to yourself.”

“But if I had helped Eren—”

“Mikasa, you had just woken up from a fucking coma; you were in no shape to help anyone.” He began to unwind the bloody bandages from her shoulder and chest, mindful not to rip any more of the stitches as he did so. “And don’t forget whose fault it was that you were in that coma,” he added under his breath. He placed the bandages aside and stared dolefully at the ruined stitches. “If anyone should feel guilty, it’s me.”

 _Stubborn man._ “That’s not true.”

“It is.” His fingers moved nimbly to the few knots still in place over her wound and Mikasa flinched, sucking in a breath as he began to undo them and pull them through the tender skin. The torn stitches were easier to remove, but no less painful.

Levi glanced up at her, gauging her reaction. Mikasa tried to steel herself, but she couldn’t help the way her lips tightened with each little tug or the way her brow creased whenever he encountered a snag. She let out an audible sigh when he was done, eliciting a frown from him.

“This part is going to be worse and I don’t have anything to give you for the pain.” Worry swam in his hooded eyes. “I can try and find something, if you’d like.”

Mikasa shook her head. “I’ll be okay. I can handle the pain.”

He muttered something that sounded an awful lot like “ _you shouldn’t have to_ ” but his head was bowed and the words were too soft for Mikasa to be sure of them.

The first bite of needle through skin made her wince, and her hands clenched around the edge of the table as Levi fed the thread through the wound and drew it carefully out the other side. After a full revolution he stopped, clipped the thread and tied a knot, his fingers deft and steady.

“This isn’t the first time you’ve sewn stitches,” Mikasa commented, trying to distract herself from the pain.

Levi threaded the next stitch through her skin. “I used to stitch myself up after bad fights in the underground.” He pulled the thread tight, cinching the wound together. “I learned to do a lot of things out of necessity down there.” His gaze dropped briefly to her clenched hands. “But this is the first time I’ve ever sewn anyone else up.”

Mikasa hardly ever heard him talk about his past, so she took advantage of his sudden openness. “What was it like, living in the underground?”

His hands paused in the midst of tying another knot. “It wasn’t living.” He completed the knot and fed more thread through the eye of the needle. “It was surviving. I did a lot of things I’m not proud of just to keep myself on my feet. But all I really wanted was freedom.” He exhaled. “That should hold it for now.”

Mikasa looked down at the row of five stitches, only then realizing that he had finished. She watched him test the seam of each of them and double-check the tiny knots, and she let out a breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding.

She felt herself relax into the easy silence that had fallen, her eyelids growing heavy. It seemed impossible that she could be so exhausted after waking from a nine-day coma, but the ordeal of the past few hours had sapped any energy she’d regained. All she wanted to do was close her eyes and sleep.

And it wouldn't have been hard to do just that. She was already slipping out of awareness when Levi’s voice pulled her back.

“Why did you do it?” He whispered, fingertips still feathered lightly on her newly sewn stitches. He looked up at her, his piercing gaze holding her fast. “Why did you risk your life for me?”

His voice was so small, and Mikasa felt her heart ache at the uncertainty in it. _Does he really think he isn’t worth the risk?_ “You’ve done the same for me,” she replied. “More than once.”

Levi gave a dismissive shake of his head. “I’m your superior. It’s different. Out in the field, you’re under my protection.” His face darkened. “At least, you’re supposed to be.”

Despite the ache in her back, Mikasa forced herself to sit up to her full height. She sensed in that moment that she needed to be the strong one. That she needed to be strong for him. “It goes both ways, Heichou,” she said. “We protect each other.”

“Mikasa…” Her name tumbled from his lips like a lost benediction, and even though she wasn’t sure whether it was an indication for her to stop or continue, she pressed on.

“Even if I’d died that day, I wouldn’t have regretted what I did because it saved you. And I believe you are worth saving.”

Levi seemed to buckle where he stood, limbs quivering rebelliously, and Mikasa could tell that he was fighting to remain in control of his emotions.

She didn’t want him to maintain control, though. She wanted him to shatter – wanted him to trust her enough to let go of it all and let her be his strength just as he had always been hers.

So she decided to help him in the best way she knew how. Levi was still standing between her legs, and it was effortless to close the distance between them, fitted together as they already almost were. So Mikasa leaned forward and slowly, gently, pressed her lips to his. They were cracked and raw from the gag, but she didn't care; she wasn't perfect and it wasn't a perfect moment, but perfection wasn't what either of them needed anyway.

“Mikasa…” He breathed again, and then he was kissing her back just as gently, rediscovering the curve of her lips with his own. His hands gently cupped her cheek and jaw, his thumbs brushing lightly over her bruised skin. Their kiss tasted like blood and strife, but it also tasted like hope, and Mikasa let her tired limbs melt into his as he shifted closer.

When they pulled away to catch their breath, Levi kept his forehead pressed to hers. “I thought I’d lost you,” he said after a long moment of silence, and Mikasa heard the catch in his voice.

His hands had fallen away from her, and now, slowly, she took one of his hands in her own and pressed it once more against the stitches on her chest. She kept his hand trapped there, anchored to her, her heartbeat steady and strong beneath his palm. “I’m still here, Levi,” she said, quietly.

There was a question in his eyes as Levi looked at her, but he didn’t ask it. Instead he let his gaze drop to where their hands rested against her skin and his inhales and exhales slowly synchronized with the beat of her heart until Mikasa felt them reach a peaceful sort of sameness.

And finally, in that moment of quiet harmony, Mikasa was ready to tell him. She took a deep breath. “What I said to you, the night before we went to the docks, I… it wasn’t true.” She paused, gathering her courage. “I was lying to you. I was lying to myself.” She squeezed his hand. “But I’m not lying now. The truth is, I lo—”

“ _Don’t_."

She froze, all of her build-up shattered by that single word.

“Don’t say it. Please don’t say it.” His voice was hoarse.

None of the pain she'd experienced that night matched the agony she felt now. Every word he spoke was a knife stabbed straight at her heart. "You...don't feel the same."

He was very still for a moment, his eyes frustratingly calm and clear as he met her gaze. Finally, he spoke. "Wrong, Mikasa," he murmured, voice low and deep. "I feel the same way. But it doesn't change anything."

It was strange to feel so hopeful and so desolate all at once. "I don't understand."

"We are humanity's strongest, Mikasa, and we have a duty to live up to. Letting personal feelings develop puts that duty in jeopardy." He brushed a thumb across her cheek, catching a tear she hadn't felt as it slipped down towards her chin. "Sentimentality clouds judgment, and it's already clouded mine. I wish I could say that I could correct it in the future, but the heart doesn't learn lessons well. For example, if I had to make a choice between saving the entire Corps or saving you..." His eyes softened. "You see the predicament."

"Yes," she admitted in a strained voice. “But Levi—”

"No. So long as there are Titans and enemies to face, so long as humanity needs its strongest soldiers, we can't... we can't even say those words. We need to be strong enough to walk away, and once we get back to base tomorrow, that's exactly what I'm going to do. You need to do the same."

She clutched at him. "It's not fair," she said. She knew it was shamefully pathetic to say such a thing, but being so close to achieving happiness only to have it snatched away was the cruelest twist of fate she could imagine and it was too much for her fragile resolve. "It's not fair," she repeated weakly, and she didn't know if she felt better or worse when Levi put his arms around her and drew her close.

He let her cry against his chest, with her hands balled into fists where they clutched at his back and her head buried in his shirt, and he gently stroked her hair all the while. "It's my fault," he murmured, his lips pressing his apology to the crown of her head. "I should have stopped all of this before it started but I was too selfish. I'm sorry, Mikasa, I'm so sorry."

It was as if someone had dumped a tub of ice water down her back. Mikasa jerked out of his arms. "No," she said, her composure returning with sobering awareness. " _I_ was the one who initiated everything, not you. I wasn't some infatuated cadet seduced by her superior; it was very much the other way around. So don't apologize for my actions." She pushed herself off the table, ignoring the shake in her legs as she stood up. "And even though it isn't fair and it _hurts_ , I wouldn't change any of it. I'm not sorry, Levi. I will never be sorry about us."

Levi stared at her in stunned silence, arms hanging limply at his sides. As Mikasa waited for him to say something, he wavered like a man teetering on a precipice, his own resilience momentarily dwarfed by hers. But instead of letting himself fall, he stepped back from the precarious, tempting edge, and as she watched his walls go up, Mikasa knew that she had lost him.

"We should get back to the doctor's house." It was a numb statement, nothing more.

Mikasa didn't move as Levi began to gather up the remaining medical supplies. "I assume Dr. Grayson has a full medical arsenal in his home," he continued in the same inflectionless tone, "but having extra supplies might prove useful once we leave Stohess."

Mikasa stood by the table until everything was collected and Levi finally looked at her. For a second there was a familiar hunger in his eyes, an old fire that made her body clench with nostalgic want... but it was gone as quickly as it came, the embers cooling. And yet when he spoke, his voice was gentle. "Ackerman. I know that this... doesn't change anything, but I..." A pained frown broke through his indifferent mien. His jaw clenched. "I wish things could have been different."

 _So do I,_ Mikasa lamented, all their could-have-beens flickering like flames behind her eyes and burning out to smoke, _s_ _o do I._

But as they trudged through the quiet, hazy streets of Stohess in the early morning, back towards Eren and Rosa and all of their impending responsibilities, Mikasa began to accept the way it had to be. Or rather, the way it  _couldn't_ be.

However tragic it was, some endings were, after all, simply inevitable.

 

**

The more Levi heard about the cult, the madder he got, until his anger was so acute he could nearly taste it. “So these dumb fucks actually believe that they can convince a shifter to destroy the cities and walls and usher in some new era? What a crock of shit.”

Erwin, as ever, remained unflappable. “Perhaps, but you know better than most how oppression can affect the psyche. Most of these Olympians are either from the underground districts or the poorest parts of the cities. They have no prospects and no one to speak for them, and the higher-ups treat them with contempt and neglect. It is only natural that they would band together to seek out a champion.”

It was sound reason but it did nothing to dispel Levi’s anger. “A man-eating champion that would no doubt crush them right along with everyone else,” he retorted. “What makes them think they could control a shifter, anyway?”

“Apparently a man named Salazar.”

Levi nodded to the ornate piece of stationary resting on Erwin’s desk. “Is that what Serena said in her letter?”

“Yes.” He paused, latent curiosity brimming in his blue eyes. “Your friend…she isn’t quite what she claims to be, is she? Civilians are rarely so well informed, and yet Serena seems privy to things I'd wager many higher-ranking officials are ignorant about.”

Levi shifted uncomfortably. “We all have our secrets, Erwin. Serena’s aren’t mine to share.”

“And not mine to know," Erwin confirmed. "I was merely making an observation. Rest assured, Levi, that I will never ask you to break a confidence.”

Levi relaxed a little at his words. It was something he’d always appreciated about Erwin; the man had a wonderful sense of discretion. Even early on in Levi’s days with the Corps, Erwin had never pried for information about his past. And because of that, Levi had chosen to share most of it with him freely once he was ready to. But there were certain details no one knew, certain secrets that he would take to the grave.

How he knew Serena was one of those things.

“But you trust her?” Erwin pressed. “And the information she has?”

“Completely.”

Erwin leaned back in his chair, idly adjusting his bolo tie. “Then I will trust her as well. She said that the Olympians have followers in four of the major cities but that they are united under this Salazar’s leadership. He is the one who created the symbol we saw on the rocks- it functions as a calling card of sorts and a way for members everywhere to show loyalty to Salazar. Each group acts under his orders, and lately his orders have been to locate a viable shifter.”

“Jaeger was right under their noses and they left him alone.”

“It’s strange, I know. Serena suggested it could be because they simply didn’t know what he looked like or because they felt he was tainted, since he is an active member of the Corps. Remember that the Olympians are a cult and, as such, have certain religious affectations. A chosen champion for their cause would never be someone they viewed as corrupt or unworthy.”

“So what do we do about them?”

“With everything else going on, I can’t afford to divert a great amount of effort to disintegrating this cult, but neither can I ignore it. I think the best option is to locate Salazar, arrest him, and prove that he is a fraud and not someone that anyone should put their faith in.”

“And how do you intend to apprehend this mysterious cult leader?” Levi asked.

"First I must ask what you intend to do about Mikasa Ackerman."

The blunt statement caught Levi so completely off guard that he sputtered. "I...what are you...I don't see how that's relevant." He'd been working so hard not to think about her or about what she'd said back in Stohess, had been trying and failing to forget the way she'd cried in his arms and the way her cracked, bloodied lips had felt pressed so tenderly against his.

And falling back into a routine of formalities after everything that had happened was like swallowing nails. Levi had tried to treat her as just another soldier - offering suggestions during training (which she had at least agreed to modify until she was fully healed), polite greetings at meals, and all the rest of the bullshit their superior-subordinate relationship dictated. But seeing the hurt in her dark eyes after each impersonal interchange had gotten to him and he'd started avoiding her all together. Childish, maybe, but Levi was at his breaking point. 

And now Erwin had the audacity to stir up his shit.

"Just drop it," he muttered, pleading. "I don't want to talk about her."

Erwin seemed to sense that pushing him would be fruitless. He nodded. "Okay. Though I think you'll understand why I asked once you've heard how I propose to deal with Salazar. It's fairly radical and could potentially take quite some time to accomplish."

Levi scowled. Knowing Erwin,  _fairly radical_ and  _quite some time_ were euphemisms at best. "Fine. Let's hear it." He was open to anything that would steer the conversation away from Mikasa.

Erwin told him his plan and it was every bit as crazy as Levi had imagined.

And by the time he left his office an hour later, Levi couldn’t believe that he’d agreed to it.

 

**

It was sometime past midnight, the sky outside an inky black pierced by thousands of tiny lights, and the halls of the Survey Corps castle were quiet and empty save for the muted tread of one man's footsteps.

It was the eve of his departure, and Levi was making one last round of the castle. He did it more out of a sense of nostalgia than of necessity, and as he ambled along he wondered how long it would be before he walked these halls again.

His aimless wandering carried him down the cadets' wing until he stood before a particular closed door, and as he stared at the imperfections in its wooden grain, he realized that maybe he'd been coming here all along, that maybe his wanderings hadn't been as random as he'd thought.

He was, after all, standing outside of _her_ room.

His fingers curled towards his palm and he raised his hand, letting it hover an inch from the door, fist poised to knock.

He hesitated.

_You told her to walk away. You pushed her away. You have no right to be here._

Levi lowered his hand and stood there, still as stone. There was so much he wanted to do, so many things he wanted to say to her. He tried to convince himself that one touch, one kiss, one softly spoken word would be enough, but he knew that wasn't true. If he knocked on her door and Mikasa let him in, he wouldn't have the strength to leave.

And he _had_ to leave. He had to.

Orders were orders, after all, and despite Erwin's suggestion that he take Mikasa with him when she was healed, this was one mission Levi was going to embark on alone. He wouldn't jeopardize her safety again, wouldn't put her in a position where she'd feel the need to save him if something went wrong. He wouldn't tell her the truth of what he was about to do, wouldn't ask her to wait for him so that maybe someday they could try to be like normal people and settle down. He wouldn't burden her with the same words she'd almost spoken to him just so that he could have something to hold onto on all the lonely nights to come.

And he wouldn't knock on her fucking door now and change his mind about it.

He stepped back, ignoring the ache in his chest. "Goodbye, brat," he whispered, and then he walked back the way he had come, disappearing into the dark.

He left the castle before dawn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe this story is almost hitting double-digit chapters! Thanks to all of you guys who continue to read and support it!!  
> If you feel inclined to comment, I'd love to hear from you! The good, the bad, the ugly... it's all welcome! Feedback of any kind is _molto apprezzato_ :)


	10. A Wolf in the Fold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to split this chapter because of length and it still turned out to be a mammoth. Yowza.

“I can’t believe I lost. Again.”

Sasha grinned. “I can’t believe you thought you’d win.” She shook her head. “You should know better than to bet against me by now. Dork.”

Connie elbowed her in the ribs, rolling his eyes at her name-calling. “Yeah, yeah, whatever.” He slumped. “I really thought Axel would beat Tomas; the kid is fast as lightning.”

Sasha looked back at where the new recruits from the 108th were swooping around on the practice course. A few of them were working diligently at taking down the wooden Titans, hacking their blades through the imitation napes and then inspecting the depth and precision of their cuts before having another go. But aside from those dedicated few, the rest of the newcomers were goofing around – pulling stunts and trying acrobatic maneuvers for the hell of it, laughing when someone wiped out and cheering when someone landed a particularly impressive move.

And in the midst of it all were the twins: Tomas and Axel Straus, catching their breath and pulling their gear back on. Tomas was grinning from ear to ear, and even though Sasha couldn’t hear what he was saying, she could tell by his emphatic gestures that he was taunting his brother. The two had taken to competing with each other, and since they were evenly matched skill-wise both with the 3DMG and at carving up the practice Titans, they’d decided to race on foot to change the nature of the game. Sasha had heard some of the cadets talking about it in the mess hall and goaded Connie into betting her on it. All in the name of good fun, of course.

Well, good fun and the fact that she _really_ hated laundry duty.

“Yeah,” Sasha agreed. She dug her heels into the patch of dirt they were standing in. “Axel’s pretty fast but Tomas is less of a show off. When he commits to something he just gets it done. He’s efficient.”

Connie sighed, rubbing a hand over the barely-there fuzz on his head. “Guess you know this crop of kids better than I do.”

“Probably. I come out here in the mornings and help them train sometimes. If you ever get your ass out of bed early enough you could come see for yourself.”

“Nah, I need my beauty sleep.”

Sasha laughed, giving him a playful punch on the arm before she plopped down on one of the few benches scattered nearby. She closed her eyes, turning her face up towards the sun.

_It’s a beautiful day and it won’t end with laundry._

Well, not for _her,_ anyway.

She heard Connie sit down beside her and her lips quirked up in a smile. She was so grateful to have him in her life. Everyone else in the Corps was so serious and solemn – and she didn’t mind; she knew they all had their reasons - but Connie's levity was a breath of fresh air. He still knew how to laugh, still knew how to enjoy the little things in life that everyone else overlooked.

The graduates of the 108th shared some of his lightheartedness, and Sasha loved them all the more because of it. During training she made sure they were capable and ready for combat, knowing that they’d be going on their first expedition outside of the walls in under two weeks, but she didn’t begrudge them their fun when they weren’t on the clock. The Titans were still a distant fear to them and Sasha wasn’t going to be the one to burst their bubbles. The newbies would figure out just how scary the world was soon enough.

“Uh-oh.”

Sasha opened one eye and peeked over at Connie. “Uh-oh what?”

“Our squad leader, 2’oclock. And she doesn’t look happy.”

Sasha sat up, instantly on alert. Sure enough, Mikasa was headed their way, back from another one of her daily runs that seemed - like always - a mile longer than it had been the day before. She paused as she drew closer to the cadets’ training grounds, and Sasha felt more than saw the death glare she aimed in the 108th’s direction.

Connie shifted next to her. “You might want to—”

“On it,” she said, standing. Apparently Mikasa was still angry about the comments Milo had made at breakfast, and Sasha didn’t feel like carrying a cadet to the infirmary because Mikasa decided to go apeshit on him under the pretense of “sparring practice”. Better to intercept her before anything happened.

 _Sasha Braus, peacekeeper of the Corps._ The thought made her smile.

“Don’t forget to wash my underwear!” She called over her shoulder, smirking at the blush that crept up Connie’s face. And before he had the chance to stammer out a retort, Sasha turned and jogged towards the training grounds.

“Mikasa! Hey, Mikasa!” She called when she was close enough to the other girl that she didn’t have to shout to be heard.

Mikasa stopped and waited for her, raising a hand to shield her face from the sun as she squinted in her direction. She didn’t offer more than a perfunctory hello when Sasha reached her but Sasha didn’t mind; Mikasa was always a little reserved, even when she wasn’t in a bad mood.

Which she was definitely in right now.

Sasha pretended not to notice. “Do you want to grab some dinner with me?" She suggested brightly. "Connie’s on laundry duty and I don’t really want to eat alone.”

Mikasa frowned, glancing briefly towards the younger cadets. “I don't know, Sasha. I don’t think I’ll be very good company.”

Sasha waved a dismissive hand and gave her an encouraging smile. “No worries; bad company's better than no company.”

Mikasa looked as though she was about to refuse, but then she paused. "I guess I am pretty hungry..." She said as if she was only just becoming aware of that fact. She nodded. "Okay," she relented. "I'll have dinner with you." She led the way back inside the castle, and they walked in silence for a while until Sasha decided that they were far enough from the training grounds and the cadets for her to broach the subject.

“Do you want to talk about what happened this morning?” She asked. She’d realized long ago that it was better to let Mikasa share what she wanted instead of prying. Starting with a question seemed like neutral enough territory.

Mikasa stopped walking and sighed. Her grey eyes were heavy - tired as they met Sasha’s. “What would be the point?”

Sasha shrugged, letting her hands rest akimbo. “I don’t know. Just to…rant, I guess. Get whatever’s eating you off your chest so you don’t take it out on the cadets.”

Mikasa’s lips tightened but she didn’t say anything, so Sasha barreled on. “I know you’re upset about what Milo said at breakfast – we all are. But Mikasa…” She bit her lip, her confidence wavering. If Connie were there he’d tell her to shut up and mind her own damn business, and in truth maybe that would be the wiser course of action.

And yet…

_Mikasa may be hard as stone but she still needs friends. Everybody needs friends, especially when they act like they don’t want any._

She took a deep breath. “Look,” she said gently, “you may be able to fool the guys but I’m not buying it. You’re hurting worse than the rest of us and I just want you to know that you can talk to me. We may have lost our squad leader but we still have each other. I'm here if you want an ear.”

 _Lost_ was a stupid way to put it, she knew; it wasn’t like Captain Levi had died. But _lost_ was certainly a friendlier term for what had happened than the truth.

Mikasa gave her a small smile but the heaviness of her gaze didn’t change. “Thank you for the offer, but all I really want is a distraction. I don't want to talk about a cadet's silly comments or about...” She looked away, his name dying on her lips before she spoke it. A slight furrow appeared between her eyes as her brow creased. "You're right, Sasha; I'm hurting. But I... I don't want to talk about it. I want to move past it."

It was times like this - when Mikasa seemed a little more vulnerable than usual and didn't fight as hard to keep her walls up - that made it obvious how deeply affected she was by what had happened. Out of all of them, it was clear that Mikasa was the one Levi had been closest to, and vice versa. But their closeness had been more than just a partnership on the battlefield, Sasha sensed. While she didn't make it a habit to keep track of everyone's comings and goings, Sasha _had_ noticed a few things purely by osmosis. Like how the two of them had been absent at the same times, how they had made a point of _not_ sitting together at meals, how there had been more than a few nights when Mikasa hadn't come back to her room until well past dawn and a few mornings when she'd spotted Levi in their wing of the castle with no ostensible reason for being there.

She'd rationalized all of those tidbits away to nothing more than coincidences at the time, simply because she couldn't imagine that either Levi or Mikasa - reserved as they were - would be willing to form an intimate attachment with another person, let alone with each other.

But looking at the dark-haired girl now... Sasha wasn't so sure.

Mikasa didn't say anything further, though. She just resumed walking, inveterate mask back in place, and so Sasha fell into step beside her. As much as she wanted to help Mikasa, she didn't push the issue.

 _She'll talk when she's ready to._ Maybe. Hopefully.

They were quiet for a while, footsteps echoing dully behind them.

“So…” Mikasa began after minutes of silence, and Sasha immediately held her breath, waiting for the stoic girl to finally give in and open up about her feelings.

“…Why is Connie always doing your laundry?”

_Huh?_

Sasha exhaled, deflated but not all that surprised. Of course Mikasa would just change the subject and pretend like nothing was wrong. She was always  _fine_ or  _okay,_ never offering more than those blasé, one-word answers and usually following them up with a _do you know where Eren is?_  inquiry to change the subject. Deflection and evasion. Maybe someday she’d open up, but until then Sasha would just have to settle for trying to make her crack a smile and get out of her head. It wasn’t the way _she_ would handle her issues (she was a fan of letting people know exactly how she felt) but if all Mikasa wanted at the moment was a distraction then Sasha would be happy to provide her with one.

She smiled. “It’s a funny story. I’ll fill you in over dinner.” She put a spring in her step. "Now c'mon, Miss "I-can-run-a-thousand-miles-a-day"; pick up the pace! I'm _starving_."

And as she watched Mikasa's lips curl up in a glimmer of a smile, Sasha thought that maybe her efforts hadn't gone entirely to waste after all.

 

**

When Augustan Reed got back to his room all of the usual gang was already there, sprawled out on his and Axel’s beds.

Bia was the first to notice him and she paused mid-sentence, her thick chestnut braids swinging as she looked up. “Hey Auggie,” she said, giving him a toothy grin. “Finally decided to join the party, huh?”

He chuckled. “Jeez, cut me some slack, would ya? I was on stable duty and I figured you guys would appreciate it if I showered first.” He plopped down between her and Tomas, forcing them to scoot over and make room for him, which they gladly did. “But if you missed me so much, next time I’ll come find you first and give you a great big horse-stinky hug.”

Bia wrinkled her nose. “Ew, gross!” She shoved him away in mock horror, drawing an easy round of laughter from the others.

Everyone except Milo, of course. The tall, dark-skinned boy never laughed.

Auggie liked him well enough anyway, though. He liked all of his friends from the 108th \- especially Bia. She was magnetic, and probably the reason so many of them had decided to join the Corps instead of the Garrison. When she’d made her decision, even the twins and Milo – who had been in the top ten of their class and had the option to join the Police – had opted for Survey. Pretty amazing, especially since he hadn’t heard of anyone in the top ten choosing the Corps over the Police since the 104th.

 _They’re all so brave,_ he thought as he looked between them. _Maybe one day it’ll rub off on me._

And yet as nervous as Auggie was about their impending expedition, he was happy that they were all together. Strength in numbers - that's what everybody always said, right?

A sudden rush of footsteps sounded from the hall and suddenly Raina burst through the door, looking extremely pleased with herself as she kicked it shut behind her and leaned back against it. "I am the baddest badass this side of Sina, ladies and gents," she declared, voice filled with pride.

Auggie watched as the slip of a girl reached beneath her jacket. “Guess what I got?” She asked, wiggling her eyebrows. She looked even more impish than usual.

“It must be something good, Ray,” Axel said, trying to sound nonchalant despite the bright shade of red his ears always turned whenever Raina was around. “You’re practically beaming.”

Auggie didn’t think his description was too far off; Raina looked like sunshine most of the time, with her white-blond mess of short hair and her effervescent smile, and right now her natural radiance seemed compounded.

And he understood why as soon as she unveiled the bottle she’d had tucked away in her jacket.

“I got us booze!” She squealed, holding it out in front of her like a prized trophy. “Can you believe it?”

Bia laughed. “Only because it’s you, Ray. How’d you manage it?”

Raina’s smile turned mischievous. “I nicked it from one of the officer’s rooms. You know - the one who looks a little crazy?”

“Major Hanji?”

“Yeah. Well, I overheard some people saying that her weird science flasks aren’t the only kind of liquid fun she keeps in her room and I thought I’d go check it out for myself.” She tossed the bottle in a high arc towards Tomas, who caught it despite the lack of warning. It was mostly full – the amber liquid reaching just past the neck of the bottle.

Raina shut the door and skipped over to them, wedging herself in next to Axel. “I was in and out before she ever even got back from her meeting.” She nodded to Tomas. “Crack it open already!”

He obliged, twisting off the cap before passing it towards Bia. She took a swig, downing it as easily as a mouthful of water, and then smacked her lips together appreciatively. “Wow. Good score, Ray; this stuff is strong.”

Everyone took turns after that except for Auggie. He’d never had a drink and he had no desire to start. His old man was a drunk, and a nasty one at that. And not just the kind who yelled and liked to fight – though he was a master of those skills too. No, Auggie’s father was the kind of drunk who stumbled home after a night of binge drinking and puked his guts up all over the rug and then tried to eat the vomit so he wouldn’t waste the alcohol. He’d scream and curse and lash out when Auggie held him back, and then he’d cry until he passed out in a heap on the floor, dirty and bloody and reeking of cheap liquor, where he’d stay until he woke up, went out, and started the vicious cycle all over again.

And Auggie had always been the one left to clean up the mess.

He’d spent hours scrubbing that rug clean, scrubbed it until his knuckles were raw and the rug’s once-vibrant colors had faded to a wash of greys. His friends had told him to throw it away, but he'd never been able to. His grandmother (the only decent person in his entire, dysfunctional family) had left it especially for him and Auggie didn’t have the heart to get rid of it.

Not that that had stopped his father from selling it to buy more booze when their money had run out. No honor among drunks. _  
_

_Yeah, dear old Dad was quite the role model._

But Auggie would be better than that. He had to be.

It’s why he’d joined the military, despite his fear of the Titans and his loathing for violence. To be a better man than his father.

Suddenly not feeling as spirited as his friends, Auggie hopped off the bed and went to stand by Milo. There was no need to bring the group’s mood down because of his sour childhood memories. Besides, he’d been meaning to talk to Milo all day and now seemed like a good time, what with everyone else otherwise occupied.

“Hey,” he said, pushing aside the memories of his father and offering the other boy a warm smile.

Milo nodded towards the group. “You’re not gonna have a go?”

Auggie shook his head. “Nope. Alcohol’s not my thing.” He was grateful that Milo didn’t pry. “What about you?” He asked, biding time while he decided how to bring up what he wanted to talk about.

“It’s not my thing either.” Milo was quiet for a moment and then he turned his intelligent, mocha-colored eyes on Auggie. “I was wondering when you’d get around to saying something,” he said.

Auggie's eyebrows scrunched together beneath his sandy bangs. “Saying something about what?”

“This morning.” Milo sighed. “I saw the look you gave me at breakfast. I don’t have to be a genius to know you didn’t approve of the things I said.”

 _That_ was true enough. If Auggie was tactful and polite, then Milo was his polar opposite. He had strong opinions and he expressed them without mincing words or caring how they came across. And this morning they had been especially harsh.

“You really upset Squad Leader Ackerman,” Auggie said.

“I don’t see why. All I did was call out a pathetic man for being a coward and a deserter. I’d say the same to his face if I ever got the chance.”

Auggie had no doubt that Milo would be good on his word (should the ex-Captain ever resurface), but it wasn’t the point. “And I wouldn’t blame you if you did," he conceded. "I’m not saying that what you said isn’t true. But that…how did you put it?”

Milo sneered. “No good, sniveling, traitorous excuse for a soldier.”

Auggie grimaced. “Right. Well, that “traitorous excuse for a soldier” used to be her Captain. Getting reminded of a betrayal like that over toast and tea isn’t exactly a great way to wake up. You could stand to be a little more considerate. Try thinking about others before you go running your mouth off.”

He stopped, cheeks instantly burning as he realized what he’d said. For someone who detested confrontation he’d certainly succeeded in acting confrontational. And with a guy who could knock him out with one punch, no less.

Luckily, Milo didn’t seem to be put off by his reprimand. In fact, the boy snorted in what almost could be called a laugh. “I didn’t think you had it in you,” he said. He crossed his arms. “Most people don't have the guts to call me out on anything. But since you started, go ahead and finish. You seem to have a strong opinion on what I _shouldn’t_ do, so tell me: any advice as to what I _should_ do?”

“I think you should apologize. It’s what I would do.”

Milo pursed his lips, weighing the suggestion. “I could do that, but it would be a waste of breath; I am not sorry for the things I said. I spoke the truth. And I won't insult Squad Leader Ackerman by offering her an insincere apology. It would be a disservice to her and to my conscience."

 _You know, Milo, sometimes you can be a real self-righteous dolt._ Auggie sighed. "Alright, well, don't apologize for _what_ you said, then; just apologize for talking about it in front of her and the other senior cadets. And for, you know, stirring up their past shit." A vignette of Milo quoting him verbatim popped into his head and Auggie grimaced, instantly regretting his phrasing. "I mean, try and word it a little more respectfully than I just did, but I think that should be the gist of your apology."

Milo bobbed his head. "I suppose I could do that. Of course, if she was as upset as you say she was, I wonder what will happen if she doesn’t want to hear an apology. I hear she can be scary.”

Auggie’s eyes swept over Milo’s broad chest and muscular arms and up to his strong jaw, and he found himself thinking that it was no surprise that Milo had graduated first in his class. He was rippling strength – a tall, dark powerhouse who had honed his body into a weapon and had ample dedication to boot. Milo wasn’t the type to be intimidated by anyone, even someone with a reputation as fearsome as Mikasa Ackerman’s.

“You’re pretty scary yourself,” he said, and he meant it. “So get off your high horse and just go apologize.”

“Alright. But if I come back with a black eye, it’s your funeral, Reed.”

Auggie watched him leave and then turned back to where his friends were still passing the ever-draining bottle around, the image of Mikasa Ackerman’s angry face flashing before him. The dark-haired squad leader had looked about ready to drop-kick Milo into the next life.

He hoped that her anger had dissipated over the course of the day.

 _You know, Auggie,_ he chided himself, _maybe suggesting that Milo go apologize wasn’t the best idea you’ve ever had. This is what happens when you try to play peacekeeper._

He hoped he hadn’t just created a bigger problem.

 

**

Mikasa rearranged the stack of papers on the desk in her room for what seemed the hundredth time, scanning for the single-page document she’d somehow managed to lose in the ever-growing pile.

After going through them again to no avail she shoved the whole stack away from her in exasperation, groaning as half of them spilled off of the desk like a paper waterfall and tumbled to the floor.

_Great, just great._

She put her head in her hands, giving in to the tired frustration pressing in behind her eyes - frustration that had become a familiar antagonist over the past months. Of all the added responsibilities she'd been saddled with upon her promotion, paperwork was the one Mikasa detested the most. Not only was it tedious and time-consuming, but it also brought with it a singular kind of pain reserved for mundane duties. Facing Titans she could handle, bureaucratic drudgery she could not.

Admitting defeat, Mikasa stood up with a sigh and indulged in a languid, much needed cat stretch that made every vertebra of her spine crack – her body’s way of vocalizing just how stiff and sore it was from being hunched over for a prolonged period of time. She would never have thought that stationary work could somehow be more taxing than rigorous exercise, but it was.

As she let her arms drop back down to her sides, Mikasa glanced down at the mess of papers scattered beneath her desk with doleful eyes, debating whether or not to pick them up. In the end she decided against it, much too tired to be bothered by the papery chaos.

_I'll clean it up in the morning._

She’d never been one to fret over a lack of tidiness anyway and the only person who would have given her shit about it was long gone.

_Gone without even bothering to say goodbye._

Mikasa paused, hands clenching at her sides in tense objection to the involuntary thought.

A moment of stasis passed and then she was on her hands and knees without even consciously making the decision to move, gathering the strewn papers together and diligently re-stacking them. As she placed the neatened pile back on her desk, she told herself she’d only done it to get the memory of his scowling face out of her head, to push him back into the tightly sealed box of memories she tried to keep locked away in the farthest reaches of her mind. She told herself it was discipline, habit, told herself it had nothing to do with _missing_ him.

But of course it had _everything_ to do with that.

_He abandoned me and I can’t even abandon his stupid standards of cleanliness._

“Squad Leader Ackerman?”

Mikasa turned, her initial surprise at having a late-night visitor giving way to anger as soon as she saw Milo Barrett standing in her doorway.

“I hope you have a good reason for bothering me at this time of night, Cadet.” Tactful restraint kept her from adding _you of all people_ to the end of her sentence, though she was sure the ice in her eyes conveyed that message anyway.

But her splenetic attitude didn't deter the dark-skinned boy. He clasped his hands behind his back and stood to attention, chin raised high and eyes staring forward. “Yes, Ma’am," he answered, "I do. I’m here because I owe you an apology.”

The bitter scowl on her face lost some of its bite. First Sasha and now Milo Barrett. Had she really been so transparent about how much his words had affected her? She would need to work on that.

She exhaled. “I’m listening.”

Milo nodded. “I realize that my comments this morning were insensitive. Whatever my opinions, I should have kept them to myself.” He paused, his broad shoulders slumping ever so slightly. “I didn’t stop to think about who might be hurt by my words until one of my fellow cadets pointed it out.” He straightened again, looking her in the eye. “I am sorry if I caused you any distress.”

Mikasa noticed that he didn’t apologize for _what_ he’d said, but she suppressed the urge to call him out on it, beat down the desire to correct him. After all, how could she criticize him for feeling as he did? He didn’t know the truth. No one did. To everyone except Erwin, Eren, Serena, and herself, Levi was a traitor. And to someone like Milo Barrett who made no qualms about valuing justice over mercy, to speak of a deserter any more kindly than he had would no doubt be an affront to his intrinsic moral compass.

As much as it pained her, it would be a mistake to accept his apology or to admit that his words had hurt her. After all, she was supposed to agree with him.

_You have to promote the lie, Mikasa. It is imperative to the success of Levi’s mission that you do._

That order had come straight from Commander Erwin the morning she'd all but stormed into his office four months ago, the same morning she'd woken to find out that Levi was gone. Panic had almost consumed her that day because she'd been sure – so _certain_ – that something had happened to him, that Annie had broken out of the dungeons, that somehow the Olympians had stolen into the castle and abducted him, that _something_ awful had happened because she'd been keeping her distance as per the terms of their stupid agreement.

But the guilt and worry she'd felt had been overshadowed by shock when Commander Erwin informed her that Levi had left voluntarily and at his behest. And that he'd made the decision to go alone.

She must have looked overwhelmingly stunned at the news, because the next thing she knew, the Commander had ushered her into a seat and brought her a mug of tea, gently prodding her to take a few moments to collect herself as he politely excused himself from his own office. When he returned with Eren however much later, Mikasa remembered listening woodenly as the Commander had begun to explain what was going on. He claimed that they had a right to know the truth, seeing as Levi's current mission was directly related to the fallout from their time in Stohess, but that it was crucial and mandatory that she and Eren keep the truth to themselves.

_The world must believe that Levi has defected, that he has turned against us. I am relying on the two of you to act accordingly. To do any less could put Levi's life in jeopardy.  
_

Eren of course had objected, prepared to defend his Heichou with every ounce of his not-inconsiderable passion, but Erwin had quietly and rationally talked him down until Eren grudgingly agreed to keep his mouth shut. Mikasa, meanwhile, had said nothing, and yet she was the one the Commander had held back after he dismissed Eren.

_Despite your connection to Levi, I need your word that you will stay here and do as I have asked._

She had given her word, even as she'd started to mentally formulate a plan for tracking Levi. She would have gone through with it, too, chain of command be damned. She'd disobeyed orders before when she thought her actions could save Eren, and this was no different.

But Commander Erwin had shattered all of her plans as quickly as she'd formed them.

_Mikasa, you should know that I originally posed this to Levi as a two-man mission. I intended for you to go with him. But Levi requested to go alone, just as he did when I sent the two of you to Stohess. He told me that you are a liability in the field rather than an asset and that your impulsive decisions would result in one or both of you being killed. If you disobey my orders and go after him, could you live with the consequences? Could you live with his death on your head? And could you really leave Eren without your protection? Our expeditions beyond the walls will not cease because Levi is gone; they will continue, and Eren will be on them._

Her resolve had crumbled at his words, all her determination blown to smithereens. The Commander had hit her where he knew it would have the most impact, had spoken the ugly truth that she couldn't ignore or justify away: Levi didn't want her and Eren needed her.

So she had stayed.

It had only occurred to her much later that the reason Commander Erwin had thought it necessary to speak so harshly was because he _knew_. Serving her tea, offering her the privacy of his own office to compose herself, speaking of her _connection_ to Levi...

Somehow, he had figured it out.

And so, now, Mikasa realized she would have to be tactful about how she handled Milo Barrett. It was possible that Commander Erwin had deduced the truth because she'd inadvertently shown it to him, and the last thing she needed was for a new recruit to gain his own suspicions. She could not afford to be an open book about her feelings.

_Promote the lie._

Thinking strategically, she glanced back at the cadet, for once looking _at_ him instead of through him. _Milo Barrett, 108th, top marks in every category._

She’d heard others talking about his impressive skills, heard a few people even compare his intimidating abilities to her own.

And suddenly she knew how to approach the situation. She would do what Commander Erwin had done to her: hit him where it would hurt the most.

“You graduated first in your class – correct?” She asked as she walked towards him. Once she was close enough to see the little droplets of sweat beading on his forehead she stopped and crossed her arms, waiting.

Milo’s brow furrowed but he didn’t question her change of topic. “Yes, Ma’am, that’s correct.”

“Then I suggest you act like it, Barrett.” Her voice rang with authority. “Graduating at the top of your class means that the other cadets look up to you. I expect you to set a good example for them and this morning you failed to do so. Gossip – regardless of its credence – is childish and I don’t want to hear any more of it. Drawing attention to the failings of the Corps serves no purpose other than to lower morale. What you did was merely a selfish outburst of emotion over a fact the rest of us are trying to put behind us. _That_ is why you caused me distress this morning," she lied fluidly, hating herself for it. "I wasn't angry about what you said; I was angry that you thought it was an appropriate topic of conversation."

“Squad Leader—”

"I'm not finished." She was pleased to see that he looked cowed. “As the strongest in your year, you have a responsibility to your classmates. You need to focus on the future, not the past, and you need to think before you speak. I don't think that's too much to ask - do you, Cadet?"

"No, Ma'am."

"And can I count on you to act with more integrity in all matters going forward?”

He snapped into a perfect salute, mocha eyes glowing with resolve. “Yes, Ma’am!”

Mikasa nodded, satisfied. “Then I accept your apology.”

“Thank you.” He paused, shifting from foot to foot but making no motion to leave her room.

“Was there something else, Barrett?”

His mocha eyes cautiously met hers. “Permission to ask a question, Ma’am.”

Despite knowing she probably wouldn’t be keen to answer whatever he asked, her curiosity got the better of her. “Granted.”

“I’ve heard that you were in the ex-Heichou’s squad. Was there ever any sign, any indication before he left that he was going to desert? Did you suspect that he was a traitor?”

It was as if he’d slapped her across the face. Mikasa went completely still as she tried to keep her anger at bay and her face expressionless. “No,” she said, voice even and low, “I never suspected anything. None of us did. I woke up one day and he was gone. That’s all there is to it.”

_All there is to it._

What a flippant way to describe the sense of betrayal that had ripped at her heart when she’d discovered that the man she’d come to trust hadn’t trusted _her;_ not enough to tell her where he was going, not enough to even say goodbye.

She fixed Milo with a stare meant to rattle him. “Any more questions?” She asked in a tone that made it clear that no more questions would be tolerated.

He dropped his gaze. “No, Ma’am. And I only asked because…” He froze, jaw clenching, and suddenly the implacable self-assurance he'd possessed since the day he'd arrived at base two months ago disappeared. “My brother was a deserter," he said softly, "and I never suspected anything. People used to ask me if I’d been surprised by his actions, but the truth is, I never questioned his loyalty, not until the day he proved he didn’t have any.” He glanced up from the floor and Mikasa could see genuine shame in his eyes. “I should have known.”

Her anger turned to dust. _Betrayal wounds deeply no matter what form it takes,_ she thought sadly.

She and the cadet had more in common than she'd thought.

“Your brother’s disloyalty is no fault of yours, Milo. We are only responsible for our own choices.” Her voice softened, retaining its authority but losing its harsh edge. “I will only ever judge you by your own actions. Be a good, strong soldier and I will to treat you like one. That’s a promise.”

Milo refreshed his salute, standing up to his full height. “Thank you,” he said, voice wavering just enough for Mikasa to know how deeply her words had affected him. “I promise to make you proud, Ma’am.”

Mikasa returned his salute and dismissed him, waiting until he’d shut the door behind him before she slumped into her chair, her energy sapped.

_What an awful day._

More than anything, she wanted someone to talk to, but the only person that might have understood the hurricane of emotions she was dealing with was ironically the person who had caused them in the first place. She'd tried talking to Eren once in a weaker moment but she couldn't risk it again; he'd been sympathetic but much too curious, and Mikasa couldn't handle him knowing the truth. Not now, and maybe not ever.

But this day had pushed her dangerously close to her breaking point, and Mikasa needed at least a small comfort to keep herself intact.

Maybe it would be okay to indulge her memories - just this once.

Even though she knew she was alone, Mikasa hesitated before opening her topmost desk drawer, eyes darting to the darkened corners of her room first as a precaution.

And then – only then – she let her hand sift beneath the papers and folders until she felt the familiar texture of linen on her fingers. Clutching it in hand, she pulled it out and laid it on the desk. It was still a stark shade of white, but its once-pressed crispness was now wrinkled and limp, a reminder that its meticulous owner hadn’t ironed it out in quite some time.

As her fingers traced delicate designs over it, Mikasa found herself asking the same questions that always plagued her when she was alone at night with nothing but her thoughts for company, and just like always, one particular question was forefront in her mind:

_Where are you, Levi?_

 

**

Most days, Tamsin liked her job. More than liked it, actually. As the personal bodyguard to her king, the perks were endless and her status was unparalleled. She was privy to the inner workings of all Olympian matters, was respected by the other religious members, and had the privilege of spending her days in the king's presence - all more than enough to eternally boost her confidence.

But today she was antsy and unsettled, fidgeting where she stood next to Salazar’s throne.

It wasn't really a throne - it was more of a grand armchair, just as his court was really more of an atrium adapted for his needs than an actual receiving room. It didn't matter, though; it served his purposes well enough. He had many such accommodations in the cities he visited, courtesy of some of his wealthier followers. Salazar wasn't above occasionally playing the sycophant to potential patrons to get what he wanted, and while Tamsin hated to see him stoop so low, she understood his need to do so. Making money wasn't his priority but they still needed it to support the Olympian cause.

“Be still, Tamsin,” Salazar finally ordered. The slender monarch turned in his seat, giving her a curious appraisal as he smoothed his fingers over his thick, braided beard. “What's gotten into you? We've gone over this multiple times, so why the nerves?” He asked.

Tamsin straightened, forcing her jittery limbs to relax. “No reason. I'm fine, Sire, really.”

She couldn't admit that she was nervous about the success of her own plan, not after Salazar had finally agreed to let her carry it out after a full month's worth of pleading.

“Good." He relaxed back into his seat. "Then go bring him in, please.”

Taking a deep breath, Tamsin walked towards the double doors at the end of their temporary throne room. She opened them wide and stepped back, resisting the urge to wrap her fingers around the hilt of her dagger.

The short, dark-haired man who had been waiting in the hallway strolled in like he owned the place, hands in his pockets, gait untroubled. As he passed her he cocked his head, a venomous smile playing at the corners of his thin lips. “You look a little stiff today, Tamsin. Are you constipated or something?”

She could feel her face turning blotchy shades of red. “Fuck you, Levi,” she hissed.

“I’ll pass. You’re not my type.”

“Too strong for your liking?” She smirked.

His lips twitched. “No. Too stupid.”

Tamsin lost it. “You ungrateful little _scab_ , I’ll—”

Salazar’s voice rang out from across the room. “Tamsin, enough. I don’t have time for your antics today.”

“Yes, Tamsin, why don’t you heel like a good dog,” Levi muttered under his breath, just loudly enough to make sure that she heard him, before he sauntered past her.

Tamsin bit her tongue and counted to ten, trying to regain her composure as she imagined gruesome ways of killing the short bastard. When her blood had cooled from a boil to a simmer, she turned and marched back towards Salazar, taking up her place beside his throne. He and Levi were already conversing, but Tamsin could only focus on how smug Levi looked, standing there as if he belonged.

Oh, how she hated him. _He thinks he can just waltz in here and win everyone over because he’s got a famous reputation and a chip on his shoulder._ _It isn’t fair._

She’d had to work her way to the top, had to prove her worth every step of the way. It had taken years for her to win Salazar’s favor but eventually she had, and Tamsin took pride that all of her perseverance had finally paid off.

But Levi… Levi had wormed himself in like a parasite, climbing the ranks and embedding himself in her king’s good graces before those closest to him had even had a chance to voice their opinions on the matter. Salazar had been intrigued by the little fuck’s public denouncement of the Survey Corps and Erwin Smith, and his interest had been piqued even more when Humanity’s Strongest claimed that he would get his revenge on the fools who had entrapped him in the military for so many years.

After that, the pieces had all just miraculously fallen into place. Levi had _happened_ to run into Salazar during his travels, showing up like a lost fucking puppy at his favorite inn in Hermina, and of course Salazar had been only too eager to recruit the notorious ex-soldier. Levi's prowess was unrivaled and that made him a choice addition to the Olympians, much to Tamsin's chagrin. First it had been one job, then two, and now here he was on practically a daily basis, a rebel with a _new_ cause.

 _The perfect chess piece_ , Salazar had said.

How quickly he seemed to forget that Levi was the one who had dispatched Julius, the one who had all but killed their viable shifter.

Salazar should have had the traitorous fuck executed – and he would have, if it had been anyone else – but instead Levi was treated like a prodigal son, welcomed into the fold with open arms.

Hate wasn’t a strong enough word to describe the utter loathing Tamsin felt for him.

“…a shame he didn’t see eye to eye with us. I trust you handled him?” Salazar was saying as Tamsin finally tuned back in.

Levi nodded. “He won’t cause you any more trouble.”

Salazar clapped his hand together. “Good. Ah, Levi, if only you’d left the Corps sooner. I could’ve used someone with your skills when I first rose to power; you would have smoothed over so many rough patches.”

And there it was: her cue.

_Act. Do it exactly as we rehearsed._

Tamsin drew her knife with exaggerated purpose, raising it high and angling the blade towards Salazar’s heart.

This was it. Three seconds and it would be over.

Levi was there in two.

Before she knew what had happened, Tamsin found herself forced to her knees and her own blade pressing against the tender skin of her throat. She gasped as Levi jerked her head back.

She looked up into his cold eyes, refusing to let even a modicum of fear show on her face. “Don’t kill me,” she said through clenched teeth, her practiced lines spilling out with ease despite the feel of steel on her skin. “Kill _him_. He’s the one standing in your way, not me.”

_Take the bait, Levi. Take the bait and give me a reason to kill you._

"Kill him!" She repeated. "You'll be a better king than he ever could be. A stronger king."

Levi chuckled – a dry sound completely devoid of humor. “What? You think I want to take his place?” He dug the blade in a little deeper. “You’re more delusional than I thought, Tamsin.” His eyes flashed. “I’m not the traitor here.”

“Once a traitor, always a traitor,” she snarled.

Salazar held up a hand. “Levi, release her.”

_No, no, no, don't you do it, you little prick. Go ahead and show your true colors._

But Tamsin instantly felt the blade leave her neck. She slumped forward, catching her breath and rubbing at her throat. Her hand came away bloody.

“He cut me,” she muttered as she stood up.

Salazar laughed. “Well my dear, you were the one who wanted to play this game. Now you have to suffer the consequences of losing.”

Levi, consummate actor that he was, looked genuinely confused. “Game?” He said blankly.

Salazar sighed. “Forgive me, Levi, but Tamsin here was convinced you had an ulterior motive when you joined the Olympians – namely that you intended to kill me. I got so tired of her nagging me about it that I agreed to test her theory in the simplest way possible: by seeing if you’d do the opposite – by seeing if you’d _save_ me.” He smiled. “Which you did.” He gave Tamsin a patronizing look. “Satisfied?”

She was anything but satisfied. She had aimed to catch Levi in her trap, had already imagined how delicious it would feel to watch him be double-played, how satisfying it would be when Salazar finally realized that she’d been right all along and ordered her to make Levi a head shorter than he already was.

But Levi hadn’t played into her hands, and Tamsin’s failed attempt to prove his disloyalty had only served to cement Salazar’s trust in him.

She wanted to scream – not only because Levi had made her look like a paranoid idiot in front of her king, but also because she was still convinced Levi was anything but trustworthy. She couldn’t explain it but she knew it intuitively nonetheless. And she had an awful feeling in the pit of her stomach that Salazar would eventually pay a dear price for his mistake.

But for now she simply nodded. “Yes, Sire. I’m satisfied.”

She turned to Levi, her blue eyes shouting murder. “I’m sorry I doubted you.” _I’ll expose you in the end, you short fuck. Just you wait._

Before Levi could reply, Salazar stood up. “I’m glad that’s settled, then, because we do have business to attend to. One of my informants tells me that the Police has captured another shifter. I intend to find out the veracity of this myself. Levi, you will accompany me to Stohess – you’ve been there recently and know the city. Tamsin, you will stay here and oversee my expansion operations until we return.”

 _What?_ He couldn't seriously be entertaining the notion of having Levi accompany him in her stead, could he? “Sire, surely I should be the one—”

“Do not question me, Tamsin. Obey me.”

Silently fuming, she tried not to let the hurt show. “Yes, Sire.” She bowed her head submissively to hide the tight clench of her jaw.

Salazar turned away. “Better. Levi, be ready to leave by tomorrow morning.” He strode to the doors and walked away, leaving Tamsin alone with Levi.

She rounded on him instantly. “I know I’m right about you,” she said, her body shaking with barely suppressed anger. “I know it.”

Ignoring her accusations, Levi tossed her knife at her feet, his well-tailored look of boredom back in place. “Learn how to use that properly,” he said. “Salazar has no need for a shitty bodyguard who only has a talent for getting disarmed.” He turned away.

Tamsin watched him leave in silence, holding herself together long enough for the doors to shut behind him before falling to her knees. In a jerky lunge, she grabbed her knife and hurled it across the room with a scream. The blade sank deep into the wall upon impact.

_One day that will be you, Levi. I swear it on my honor as an Olympian. One day soon I will see you dead._

 

**

Four long months of this and it was finally coming to an end.

Being the centerpiece of Erwin’s undercover operation had been a living hell, fraught with more troubling complications than Levi had anticipated. He’d expected the slander against his name and the defamation of his character, had endured the insults slung at him in every slimy recess of the various cities he’d traveled to in his hunt to locate Salazar, had stuck with Erwin’s plan as best he could with Tamsin breathing down his neck. But the most difficult aspect of the whole fucking thing had been not killing Salazar outright.

The man wasn’t just a pig, he was a full-blown nutcase. The closer Levi had gotten to his side, the more he'd realized it.

And the crap he was spouting now was the crowning glory of all his bullshit.

“This world needs a cleansing, Levi,” he was saying between sips of the wine Levi had stolen for him. “And once we unleash a Titan inside the walls, a cleansing is exactly what will happen.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, ignoring the drops of wine that clung to his beard.

Levi could barely contain his disgust. He wasn’t sure what he found more unappealing about Salazar: his ideologies or his hygiene. Probably both.

“What about us?" He asked. "What about the rest of the Olympians?”

Salazar snorted. “Don’t be so narrow-minded. I promised a new dawn and I will deliver it. But humankind will have no part in it. It is the era of gods and Titans, not the era of man. We will be rewarded for our sacrifice in the next life.”

“Most people seek rewards in this life,” Levi commented absently.

“They are weak. I am not. When the time comes, I will be ready to give up my life. I only hope that in time you will feel as I do, Levi.” He leaned back against the carriage's cushioned seat, closing his eyes. “And now I wish to sleep. Wake me when we arrive in Stohess.”

“Yes, Sire.” _Enjoy your last few hours as a free man._

Levi drew the curtain back just far enough so that he could watch their progress, taking in the rather stark views of the countryside as his thoughts strayed to the last time he'd traveled to Stohess... with Mikasa Ackerman. They'd ridden in on horseback, and although she'd been angry with him at the time (though really, when was she not), her sullen company had been leaps and bounds better than his present company.

Other memories of that trip came rushing back to Levi, some of them lingering in his mind even though he tried to push them away.

_The truth is, I lo..._

He wondered if Erwin had told her about his mission or if she believed he was a traitor like everyone else, wondered if she hated him now even more than she had when she'd first joined the Corps. Not that it really mattered either way. Each possibility made his gut twist.

Willing his raging mind to quiet, Levi turned his gaze back out the window and focused on the steadily changing scenery, letting the past slip away with the miles until at last, when the afternoon shadows had grown long and dark, the city gates loomed before them.

_Finally._

A few more minutes and his job would be done. He'd delivered Salazar to the city as planned, and now he just had to wait and see if Serena had come through on her end.

The gates opened outward and they passed inside, everything seemingly normal. 

But then - like music to his ears - the carriage lurched to a groaning stop, instantly rousing Salazar. He shot up in his seat, the sounds of a scuffle from the driver’s seat making his eyes widen in alarm. “What’s going on? What’s happened?”

Levi said nothing, just waited patiently.

Suddenly the carriage door opened, revealing two armed guards. More guards were fanned out behind them. “Out,” one of them barked.

Salazar didn’t move. “Levi, handle this.”

“I already did,” Levi answered, finally dropping the charade. He'd waited months for this moment and he intended to make it worth all the pain and aggravation. He gave the other man a cold smile. “It seems your day or reckoning has come a little earlier than expected, Salazar.”

Salazar bolted upright, the color leeching from his face as the truth dawned on him. “Traitor!” He cried, stabbing a bony finger in Levi’s direction. “Tamsin was right; she was right about you!”

Levi shoved the man roughly from the carriage. “Yes, she was, you gullible old man. And I'm not the only one who played you, by the way. Your informant here in Stohess is actually _my_ informant.”

Salazar's face was a frightful mix of shock and lividness. “I trusted you, you worthless little dog! _I trusted you!_ ”

“Pipe down,” the burlier of the guards said, driving a fist into Salazar’s side.

Salazar gasped and quieted, no doubt to ward off any further blows. He hung his head as the guards cuffed him, looking utterly beaten, and Levi felt a moment of true satisfaction.

But then something changed. Salazar glanced up at him and _smiled_. “Congratulations, Levi,” he snarled. “You can finally take my place as head of the Olympians. Enjoy your reign while it lasts.” He straightened up, speaking loudly enough so that all of the guards gathered around them could hear. “You think that _I_ am your greatest threat? Think again! I bribed this man to defect from the Survey Corps just as someone must have bribed him to hand me over to you. He’s no better than a mercenary for hire! There isn’t a single loyal bone in his body! If you let him go, he will betray you next!”

The guards hesitated, looking from their cuffed prisoner to Levi, trepidation etched on their faces.

Levi stiffened, alarm bells ringing. If Salazar managed to incite them, mob mentality could take over. And Levi had no gear, no viable means of escape, and no weapon other than the dagger tucked into his boot. The guards had guns. He had to appeal to their reason before things got ugly.

“I was acting under orders,” he said calmly. “You can verify that with Commander Erwin if you doubt me.”

“Lies!” Salazar spat. “There’s nothing to verify! This gutter rat is only trying to buy time so that he can slip through your fingers! And _he’s_ the one with a vendetta against the military – not me! What do you think Commander Dawk will do if you let him go on nothing more than his word? What do you think the king will do?”

His words had the desired effect.

The guards flanking them had their guns trained on Levi in a matter of seconds, and the one who had cuffed Salazar strode forward. “Under the jurisdiction of the Police, you are under arrest for treason.”

Fuck.

Levi took a step back, hands coming up defensively. “You’re making a mistake.” Why, _why_ hadn’t he planned for this? He should have known Salazar wouldn’t go down without dragging him down too. It was common sense, and yet Levi hadn’t expected it.

He had no proof that he wasn’t the traitor Salazar claimed him to be, and no one in the Police had any reason to believe he hadn’t deserted the Corps for any reason other than money.

They could easily believe the words of an insane fanatic over his own.

"Send word to Commander Erwin," Levi tried again. "He will prove that what I'm saying is true."

The guard knocked him to the ground. "You don't get to give orders!" He hollered.

Levi stayed down. There was no point in fighting back or trying to make a run for it; he’d have three bullets in him before he even managed to get on his feet.

“Check him for weapons and cuff him,” the guard said from above him. “I’m going to go inform the Commander that we have the traitors in custody.”

When they hoisted Levi back to his feet, Salazar was still smiling the same malicious grin. “It appears we’ll meet our ends together after all,” he said smugly.

Levi said nothing. He refused to give Salazar any more satisfaction by acknowledging him, even though the bastard was right – the Police would execute Levi for treason right along with him.

The situation was a total fucking mess.

He could only hope that Erwin would be able to intervene before they hung the noose around his neck.

 

**

“Tomorrow morning…” Bia murmured as they walked back towards the castle from the stables. “Can you believe it?”

Raina glanced over at her friend, happy that she wasn’t the only one nervous about the 108th’s debut expedition.

_Who am I kidding? Nervous is the understatement of the century._

She’d chewed her nails down to the nubs already fretting over everything that could go wrong outside of the walls, and when Axel had said something about it she’d threatened to start on his fingernails next if he didn’t shut it.

For now she made do with chewing on her lip. “No,” she replied. “I can’t. God, Bia, I’m freaking out. When we signed on for this, I didn’t think…” She whistled through her teeth.

Bia gave her an understanding smile. “That we’d ever _actually_ have to face Titans? Yeah. Me neither.”

“Yeah, it’s kind of crazy.” Raina thought of home, about how her mother had tried to convince her to become a seamstress like all the other girls in their family. Maybe she should have given that option more consideration. The greatest threat she would’ve faced working beside her sisters was pricking her finger on a needle.

Suddenly Bia grabbed her arm, pulling her to a stop. “Not as crazy as _that_ ,” she said, jerking her head in the direction of the road.

Raina followed her gaze and then gaped, giving her worried lip a respite as her mouth fell open in surprise. There was a woman galloping towards them on horseback, driving her mount at a breakneck pace. And it didn’t look like her proximity to the castle was making her slow down.

“Who – who is that?” Raina breathed.

Bia shook her head. “I have no idea, but I think she spotted us.”

Sure enough, the rider suddenly veered in their direction, her horse's hooves pounding over the dirt as she drew up to them. She jerked on the reins just as Bia and Raina jumped out of her way, and before Raina could blink the woman was out of the saddle and walking up to them, her red hair practically flaming in the sunlight.

“I need to speak with your Commander immediately,” she said, looking between the two of them. “It’s a matter of urgent importance. Do either of you girls know where he is?”

The entire situation had left Raina a stuttering mess, but luckily Bia didn’t share her penchant for getting tongue-tied.

“He’s in his office going over the maps for tomorrow’s expedition,” she answered. “If you want, I could—”

_“Serena?”_

Both girls turned, forming hasty salutes as Squad Leader Ackerman approached them. Not that the veteran soldier even noticed; her dark eyes were fixed in shock on the newcomer.

The redhead exhaled in relief. “Mikasa,” she said, “I have news. Do you know where Erwin is?”

“News?” There was a slight quaver in the Squad Leader’s voice.

The other woman nodded gravely. “It's urgent and bad.” Her green eyes touched briefly on Raina and Bia. “And it would be unwise to share it with anyone besides the Commander.”

“I understand." A pained frown flitted across Mikasa's face. "He wanted to see me to go over formation assignments for tomorrow anyway. I’ll take you to him.”

Raina frowned, utterly bewildered by their interchange. _What is going on?_ Clearly the two women knew each other, but Raina had a feeling that whatever was between them had nothing to do with friendship. She could practically _see_ the tension hanging in the air.

_Is it because of this woman or because of the news she’s brought?_

Perhaps it was both. There had definitely been an unspoken communication happening between the vocalized parts of their conversation.

But before she had time to dwell on it any further, the Squad Leader shucked the horse’s reins in her direction. “Please see to the horse and go back to your duties,” she ordered. And then, almost as an afterthought, “And get some rest. We leave on the expedition early in the morning.”

And without another word, she took off towards the castle at a jog, the redhead following closely behind her.

“What the hell was that about?” Bia chirped.

Raina just shook her head. “I have absolutely no idea.”

 

**

Erwin was reexamining the final changes he’d made to the squad arrangements for the impending expedition when three abrupt knocks sounded on his door, disrupting his attention from the sketches in front of him. He barely had time to offer the perfunctory “come in” before Mikasa barged in, tailed closely by the very last person he’d expected to see on Corps grounds.

“Serena,” he said, stating the obvious. He stood up, instantly concerned. If she had taken it upon herself to come in person, something must be very wrong.

“What’s happened?”

“It’s Levi.” Serena’s usually mellifluous voice was shaking badly. “He’s scheduled to be executed. Tomorrow.”

 _“What?”_ Mikasa’s word cut the air like a knife. “How is that possible?”

“He's been convicted of treason.”

Erwin regained his temporarily paralyzed wits and cut in. “I issued an official debriefing of Levi’s covert operation days ago and sent the message by courier," he said. "It was more than enough to pardon him.”

“I have no doubt that it would have been, if your message had ever reached the council.” Serena grimaced. “Your courier was intercepted and your message tampered with. The letter the council received condemned Levi and denied the existence of any covert operation. And to make matters worse, whoever forged it left your seal intact. The council deemed it legitimate, and when you failed to attend the trial…”

“They viewed it as me washing my hands of him,” Erwin finished, feeling sickened, “which would be enough to corroborate the falsified document.” He pounded his fist on his desk, the only outward release of anger he allowed himself before he began thinking of a way to fix the abysmal situation.

Erwin had sacrificed a great many things in his fight for humanity over the years, had lost many people to the jaws of the Titans to propel humankind towards a brighter future, but he refused to see Levi die a traitor because of an order he had given. He would rather meet the hangman’s noose himself.

“I will write another pardon,” he said as he sat down and pulled out pen and paper. His left hand – as always – was clumsy and slow as he began to write, the formation of letters still unnatural to his non-dominant hand. But the words were legible and unmistakably his which was all that mattered.

 _I will set this right._ “When I am done, I will take it myself.”

“No.”

Erwin glanced up in surprise to see Mikasa Ackerman shaking her head. She took a step forward. “Sir, if Serena is right about the time frame, you’ll never make it to Stohess in time. You need to send your fastest rider, and it has to be someone who will not be intercepted on the road like the last man you sent.” There was dogged determination glittering in her grey eyes. “I am the one who should go.”

“She’s right, Erwin,” Serena said. She sat down heavily on the couch, the exhaustion of her earlier ride finally seeming to catch up with her. “Mikasa may be the only person who has a chance of getting there in time.”

Erwin looked back at his squad leader. “I do not doubt your resolve, Mikasa, but if you go in my stead there is no guarantee that the council will not believe _this_ document to be the forged one. You could find yourself locked behind bars for perjury, and Levi will still be executed.”

The stubborn set of her expression never faltered. “Then follow after me as quickly as you can, Commander. If I cannot convince them that this is the truth, I can at least delay his execution until you get there.” A softer emotion flickered briefly in her steel grey eyes. She lowered her voice. “Please, Commander, let me do this."

Erwin debated with himself. He was no longer the rider he'd been before the loss of his arm - that was a fact. Mikasa was the better option, but she was also in charge of an entire squad and Erwin couldn't afford to lose a squad leader on the eve of an expedition. 

But neither could he afford to lose Levi.

“You have my permission,” he relented. With dexterity fueled by purpose, Erwin sealed the newly written letter and affixed his official seal to it. He held it out to Mikasa. “Here. Leave as soon as you’ve readied a horse. I will not be far behind.”

Mikasa grasped the letter, the tense line of her shoulders relaxing slightly as he granted her request. “Thank you, Commander,” she said, and then she was gone, out the door without so much as a salute.

Erwin stared after her, the guilt of hindsight brewing in his stomach. If he had alerted Nile or Darius sooner about Levi’s mission, if he had chosen to confide to someone in a position of power, none of this would be happening.

In choosing absolute secrecy, Erwin had made an egregious mistake – one that could cost his friend’s life.

Serena must have sensed his feelings. “Mikasa will stop this from happening,” she said. It might have been an empty reassurance, but the look in her eyes told Erwin that she believed what she was saying.

“I hope you’re right,” he murmured. He stood up, pulling on the jacket he’d thrown over his chair earlier. He struggled with the sleeve much more than he normally would have, his mind too busy to provide the focus he needed to complete even that simple task.

But Serena was there, helping him, preventing his frustration from building any higher than it already was as she eased his arm into the sleeve with steady hands.

“She’ll save him,” she said firmly as she stepped back, her expression matching the conviction in her voice. “After all, love and anger are powerfully motivating forces, and Mikasa has both of them in spades.”

 

**

The first trickle of sunlight through the bars of his cell found Levi sitting hunched over on his cot, elbows resting on his knees. He hadn’t slept at all – not that sleep was a common bedfellow to him anyway – and though the hours had passed slowly, they had passed all the same. The dawn of his execution had arrived.

Levi had been in worse binds before, maybe, but at the moment he couldn’t think of any. He’d faced death many times throughout his life, been pushed far past the breaking point of most men, but this was the first time he’d ever been left to rot in some squalid prison cell waiting for his death sentence to be carried out. The reality of the situation was bleak.

He looked down at the manacles lying at his feet, grateful at least that no one had come by to check and see if he was still wearing them. They hadn’t been made of the same strength as the cuffs Salazar’s men had chained around Mikasa’s wrists, and Levi had been able to break them easily by using the right type of leverage. But they’d left the same chafed, red circles around his wrists that Mikasa’s cuffs had left around hers.

 _Mikasa._ He hadn’t allowed himself to think of her – not much, anyway – since he’d left the Corps four months ago, but now he didn’t see the point of trying to keep her from his thoughts. More likely than not, he would never see her again. No harm in enjoying a few good memories with whatever time he had left to him.

But the creaking whine of the rusted door swinging open at the end of the cell block robbed him even of that.

Levi stood up as the sound of heavy footfalls echoed towards him, testing his strength and readying himself for whatever fight lay ahead. He wasn’t sure if he would be able to take enough of the guards down to get out alive, but that wasn't going to deter him from trying. They were bigger imbeciles than he’d thought if they expected him to go willingly to his execution.

He was not about to die on anyone’s terms but his own.

The footsteps grew louder and an older guard appeared outside of his cell, his thick body heaving from the extra weight he was carrying around his midsection.

_This one will be easy, at least._

He unlocked the door and Levi lunged.

_“Stop!”_

The command was thunderous, and Levi felt himself pushed forcibly back against the bars of his cell by a pair of strong arms before he could reach the lump of a guard, the wind knocked from his lungs by the force of the motion.

And Mikasa’s face, so much stormier than it had been in his mind moments ago, loomed mere inches from his.

“I didn’t come here to save your life so that you could throw it away.” She spoke in a whisper but there was menace in her tone nonetheless.

Levi said nothing, too shocked to even string together the syllables of her name.

Mikasa released him, just as the guard closed the cell door and turned the key in the lock. He looked warily between the two of them. “I could probably see if Mason’s around,” he said to Mikasa. “He could clean out one of the other cells for you so you don’t have to stay here.” He cleared his throat. “If that would make you feel safer, I mean.”

She shook her head. “I’ll be fine here, thank you. He's not a threat to me."

Levi stared at her, speechless. His pulse, usually so steady and controlled, was beating a mile a minute and his mouth had gone bone dry.

The guard pursed his pudgy lips. “Okay then. I’ll bring you both some food before the guard change later on, and I’ll let you know when your Commander gets here.” And with a final, distrustful glance in Levi’s direction, he shuffled back down the hallway the way he had come, leaving Levi and Mikasa utterly alone.

 

**

Tamsin tucked her blonde braid beneath the cowl of her hood and secured her throwing knives to her belt, making sure that their blades didn’t peek out from the bottom hem of her tunic. She’d cleaned them well after using them on the courier and now they were once again spotless and ready to do her bidding.

She took a deep breath. She had weapons, provisions…everything she would need to fulfill this one last quest.

All she had to do now was mail the letter.

It was still sitting on the bedside table where she’d penned it, and now Tamsin picked it up, rereading it one more time.

_I am going to try and free the King. Stick to your current objective regardless of my success, and add this new one: if he somehow manages to regain his freedom, KILL Captain Levi. Make him pay for his betrayal and remember that if I fail in my mission, your father’s blood will be on his hands. Repay him in kind. Long live the Olympians._

It was coded, of course, but the recipient would know how to read it.

“You may think you’ve won, Levi, but you won’t escape this with your life,” she muttered under her breath as she sealed the envelope and tucked it inside of her jacket. "You'll meet the bloody end I promised you."

Her contact in the 108th would see to that.

_It’s over for you, Levi. You just don’t know it yet._

For the first time since Salazar’s arrest, Tamsin smiled.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know, I basically vomited OCs all over this chapter _and ___I cut the scene between L & M before they even got to say so much as a word to each other. I accept any and all eye rolls cast my way as a result of this. (I love you all anyway, and please believe me when I say that I did have my reasons!)


	11. Fallout

She’d imagined this moment many times over the past four months – what she would say, what she would do – but now that it was here, Mikasa realized she had no idea where to begin. She’d been so single-minded in her desire to get to Stohess in time that she’d pushed everything else aside.

Ride fast. Reach the city. Rescue Levi.

From the time she'd left base nearly half a day ago, those three cut-and-dried goals had been the only thing she'd allowed herself to focus on – a series of simple step-by-steps that her honed military mind had executed with little conscious thought.

But this was different. It wasn’t a situation she could boil down to an impersonal objective. She was stuck in a cell with Levi and four months’ worth of pent-up feelings and emotions, and there was nothing impersonal about it. Even the silence that curled around them was laden with dormant tension.

She wasn't ready to face him.

_He told me that you are a liability._

_He requested to go alone._

“Mikasa.”

She flinched. His voice sounded like sandpaper, though whether that was from disuse or abuse she couldn't tell. It was the first time he'd spoken since she'd gotten there, and part of her wished he'd said _Ackerman_ instead.

She could hear him moving behind her but she kept her back to him, kept her gaze riveted stubbornly on the floor in front of her. There was dust and mold packed into the cracks in the stones and rust on the bottom of the barred door, creeping up the steel poles like an oxidized trellis. It looked about as rough and worn as Levi's voice had sounded but lacked the underlying softness that threatened to undo her.

"Mikasa."

Her name came out even throatier than it had the first time, strained and gruff. Still, she didn't react.

“Mikasa, turn around."

She didn't. She couldn't.

"Please.”

Her breath hitched. _Please?_

It was so foreign to hear a word as weak as that one on his lips that Mikasa felt her stalwart resolve waver, the vulnerability of it triggering something inside of her. Levi was a man accustomed to giving orders, his words resonating with authority even at their most subdued, even when they weren't meant to be taken as orders. But Mikasa couldn't hear even a vestige of that authority in his voice now.

She turned around.

And stared, her breath catching for an entirely new reason.

When she’d pinned him to the bars of his cell earlier, she hadn’t really taken a good look at him, had only focused on him long enough to deliver her command before retreating to the safety of ignoring him. But now she couldn't help but notice everything, to see all the differences that four months had brought.

They were startling.

His undercut had grown out and his bangs hung heavy in his eyes, the tousled ends reaching well past the bridge of his nose and making him look almost feral - an impression that the purple shiner adorning his left cheekbone and the wariness in his bloodshot eyes did nothing to dispel. Those were probably the most striking changes, although his appearance from the neck down was a far cry from his usual immaculateness. His clothes were ratty and dusty and his pants were torn at the knees, revealing hints of bruised skin. His belt was gone, and the hem of his shirt had come undone - probably some time ago, judging by how far the frayed ends had unraveled. Even his shoes were ruined, crusted with mud or maybe even dried blood; it was hard to tell for sure what exactly it was.

If she had been at a loss for words before, Mikasa was utterly speechless now. In all the years of working beside him, she had never seen him look anything but pristine. He was always polished, dignified, crisp - retaining a certain poise even in the midst of battle.

Now he was an unkempt mess, and not just physically. His once-clear eyes were muddled with caged uncertainty and his stance was one of subtle defensiveness.

Mikasa barely recognized him.

_What happened to you, Levi?_

Her anger vanished like smoke in the night. “Are you hurt?” She murmured, looking into his bloodshot eyes.

"No." He seemed to relax slightly when he realized that her immediate concern outweighed whatever hostility she'd exhibited earlier. “Not badly,” he amended. "I look worse than I feel." He gave her a brief inspection. “You?”

“I’m fine.”

He was quiet for a moment, expression inscrutable. "I assume you know the truth," he said at last.

Mikasa felt a quiver of anger shoot up her spine. _Yes, no thanks to you._ "I've known the truth since the day you left," she stated without breaking eye contact. "Commander Erwin told me everything." 

If he was surprised by that, it didn't show. His posture, his expression... nothing changed. Again the silence dragged on between them, and Mikasa couldn't tell if it was a comfortable one. She sensed intuitively that she shouldn't be the one to break it, however.

So she waited.

Levi looked down at his feet, his untamed bangs casting shadows over his face. "Did Erwin send you here?" He asked without looking up.

"Yes." _After I asked him to._

The way he cringed at her brusque reply made Mikasa think that maybe she should have voiced that last part out loud, but before she could add anything, Levi spoke. "Took his damn time. If he'd gotten his ass in gear any later I would've had a real shitty morning." He sighed. "Tell me what happened."

Normally she would have rolled her eyes at his crassness, but right now she was comforted by it. It proved that at least a sliver of her old Captain was still intact beneath the chaos. "Commander Erwin sent a pardon for you more than a week ago," she responded, "but it seems that someone intercepted it."

"Hmph." Levi sat down on his cot with a disgusted snort. "Of course," he muttered. "Tamsin never knows how to let anything fucking go."

Mikasa frowned. "Who?" It wasn't a name she recognized.

He shook his head. "No one important. What happened after that?"

"Serena came yesterday and told us what had taken place at the trial - that you'd been found guilty of treason and sentenced to be hanged. Commander Erwin wrote a new pardon - he's on his way here now to verify it. I rode ahead to make sure it got here before..." She swallowed the lump in her throat. _Before I lost you for good._ "Before anything happened."

Levi didn't say anything, and Mikasa eventually risked a peek in his direction, wondering why he'd lapsed back into silence.

She started. Levi was staring at her in what could only be described as sheer bafflement, and it made her feel instantly self-conscious. The fact that he didn't say anything made his perusal all the worse. She fidgeted, her palms starting to tingle damply. Having his undivided attention was the last thing she wanted right now. She swallowed. "Heichou, why—"

Levi cut her off. "Yesterday?" His tone was heavy with incredulity. "You found out _yesterday?"_

"Yes," she answered, confused. She didn't understand what he was getting at.

"So you what - rode here in the middle of the night? Barged into the Police's central prison and demanded to speak with the brass in charge?"

Oh. She hadn't thought of it like that, but it did more or less summarize her last twelve hours. "Yes," she said again.

Levi continued to look at her like he couldn't quite believe his eyes, but when he spoke there was a note of something (pride? respect?) beneath his disbelief. "You're one hell of a soldier, Ackerman. You always have been." He exhaled - a long, tired sigh. "Thank you... for coming here." His eyes briefly flickered to hers before drifting away. "If Erwin had sent anyone else, they wouldn't have gotten here in time."

It was a certainty she was well aware of. Bitterness coiled in her stomach. “That’s high praise coming from someone who thinks that I’m such a liability in the field.”

His head snapped up. “What are you talking about?”

“Never mind.” She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from saying something she’d regret. Yes, she was angry and hurting and she desperately wanted answers to the questions that had plagued her for the last four months, but now was not the time to pry them from him. A year ago she would have acted differently – would have lashed out or verbally attacked him, because a year ago she hadn’t known him or cared to know him. But now, standing across from him in the dingy cell, Mikasa did know him. She perceived the exhaustion in his muscular body, the fatigue in his hunched posture, the slight tremor in his fingers, the hunted look in his bloodshot eyes. Levi was working hard to hold himself together, and she wasn’t so cruel that she’d knock him to pieces to squeeze the truth from him.

So instead of bombarding him with questions, Mikasa walked to the far wall and sank down against it, pulling her knees into her chest and wrapping her arms around her shins. She exhaled slowly, her body relaxing against the stones, and it was only then that she realized how tired she was. She hadn't stopped moving since she'd left the Commander's office the day prior, and now the stress and fatigue of those tense hours finally seemed to be catching up with her.

She didn't even realize she was nodding off until Levi's voice jarred her awake.

"Mikasa."

Eyes half-closed, she glanced over at him.

He was standing in front of his cot, hands hanging limply at his sides. "Don't fall asleep on the floor," he said. "It's filthy. Take the bed."

She was too tired to care. "I don't want to move. The floor is fine."

Levi scowled, looking almost like his old self as he frowned down at her in disapproval. He started towards her. "It isn't. Let me help you—"

"I don't want your help." Her voice cracked over the words, her emotional control fracturing with her exhaustion. She didn't want his kindness, didn't want his concern, and she certainly didn't want him to touch her because she knew it would only be a matter of time before he pulled away again. And she still hadn't recovered from the last time she'd felt the ache of his rejection.

_He requested to go alone._

She closed her eyes, shutting him out and hiding her tears. "Leave me alone, Heichou," she mumbled.

And because the first tendrils of sleep were already beckoning to her, Mikasa never saw how badly Levi flinched at her words.

 

**

It was mid-afternoon when she woke up, the sunlight streaming in through the cell bars and warming her aching limbs. Mikasa opened her eyes, blinking sleepily.

Levi was sitting across from her - on the floor, not on the cot - with his arms loosely wrapped around his knees in a mimicry of her posture. He was staring off into space, head tilted back against the wall, but he focused in on her as she began to rouse, peering out at her from his curtain of dark hair.

He seemed about to say something when the door to their cell swung open, making Mikasa jump in surprise.

The guard who had ushered her there earlier stepped through, pudgy hands clutching a tray of food laden with a bowl of soup and a generous hunk of bread. He held it out to her. "Here ya go," he said. "Fresh from the kitchens. 'S not much but it's decent."

Mikasa stood up, ignoring the stiffness in her limbs, and took it from him with a smile of gratitude. "Thank you," she said, her stomach growling as the pleasant aroma of the soup wafted up to her.

The guard stepped back and quickly closed the cell door. "Well, I'll be back when there's news," he said, twisting the key and turning away.

"Wait!" Mikasa frowned. "There are two of us. This is only enough food for one."

The guard gave her a bemused chuckle. "Looks like you won't be sharing, then."

"You said you would bring _both_ of us food, Sir." Her frown darkened to a glare. "Are you not a man of your word?"

Color bloomed on his plump cheeks. "Listen," he said, wagging a finger at her, "I did you a favor, got it? But I don't have to bend over backwards for some traitor."

He stomped away, his heavy footsteps echoing angrily after him.

Mikasa turned towards Levi.

He was still sitting in his spot on the floor, and he didn't look especially bothered by the interchange with the guard. He'd gone back to staring at nothing, completely ignoring her and the tray of food.

His lack of reaction sparked an unpleasant thought. She licked her lips. "Heichou, when was the last time you ate?"

Nothing.

Nostrils flaring, she marched over to him, stopping only when she was standing well within his bubble of personal space. "How long has it been?" She pressed.

He didn't bother looking up. "A few days. They don't like feeding traitors."

She squeezed the tray in an effort to stymie her frustration. "You're not a traitor. You were only pretending to be one."

"Technicalities."

The amount of self-deprecation that oozed from that one word was so great that Mikasa shuddered. There was no reason for him to believe something so preposterous, and yet the look on his face made it all too apparent that he did.

What wasn't apparent was whether he'd acquired such a harsh self-view in the last four months, or if he'd always felt that way.

_How old are your demons, Levi?_

The thought tugged at her heart, as did the desire to chase those demons away. She placed the tray down on the cot and knelt in front of him, sitting back on her heels. From the closer vantage point, she could see the dirt caked beneath his unclipped nails – one more obvious divergence from the perfectionism he usually projected.

_All these little losses of identity and he’s forgotten who he is._

Maybe she just needed to remind him.

"Levi." She waited until he reluctantly met her gaze before continuing. "The last time we were in this city you told me that we had a duty to live up to. Whatever you had to do these last four months, whoever you had to be... I'm sure it was because you were being true to that duty. Not," she said emphatically, "because you are a traitor."

Levi shifted. "You wouldn't say that if you knew the kind of things I did to gain that pig's trust." He grimaced, and the turmoil in his expression made it clear that he was as harrowed on the inside as he looked on the outside. "It's not just these fucking clothes that are dirty, Mikasa," he said bleakly. "It's me."

She didn't doubt that he believed it, and it made her angry all over again. "You shouldn't have gone alone, Levi. You should have let me come with you."  _At the very least,_ _I could have protected you from your own self-hatred._

"No." He finally looked up at her, and his eyes were clear. "I regret a lot of the choices I've made these past four months but I don't regret that one."

Mikasa jerked back at the frigid bluntness of his words. "You can't mean that."

"I do," he replied firmly, and Mikasa felt as though he'd slapped her.

So there it was, then. Everything Commander Erwin had recounted to her had been true: Levi didn't trust her in the field and he didn't want her with him, so much so that even now - even when he'd been hours away from execution - he stood by his decision.

_It doesn’t matter how much I care. He’ll never want me by his side, just like Eren never wanted me by his._

"Fine." Mikasa stood up, her whole body shaking. She almost turned away when she remembered the food. Cursing herself for still caring when Levi obviously didn’t, she grabbed the bread and thrust it at him. “Here," she bit out. "Maybe you don't want my help, but at least share the food. You need to eat.”

He stared up at her in silence for a moment, eyes utterly unreadable. Then, instead of taking the bread from her, Levi grabbed her wrist and tugged her forward, catching her completely off guard. Mikasa lost her balance, stumbling to her knees with a surprised gasp. Her free hand shot out to his chest as she instinctively tried to break her fall.

Not that it worked; she ended up half on top of him, her face inches from his, so close that she could count the scattered flecks of blue in his steel eyes.

It only took Mikasa a second to realize how unintentionally, suggestively intimate their position was. Her cheeks flushed, the air compressed in her lungs, and she immediately tried to retract her hand. But before she could lean away from him, Levi moved. He gripped the back of her elbow with his hand, steadying her against him, and squeezed her hips with his knees, effectively trapping her in place. His other hand circled around the wrist he'd tugged, his thumb brushing against her pulse point.

Her heart began to hammer. “Levi."

His gaze touched briefly on her lips, and she knew he could see the tenuous tremble there. Her throat worked. "Let me go.”

His eyes locked onto hers. "It wasn't an easy choice to make," he said.

Mikasa felt the way his chest vibrated beneath her palm as he spoke. She shivered. "Wasn't it?"

His grip on her hips and elbow loosened. "No." He took the bread from her and placed it, uneaten, back on the tray. "But I had my reasons, Mikasa."

"I know," she murmured numbly. "I'm a liability to you."

He paused. His hand fell away from her wrist and Mikasa instantly stood up, giving herself some much needed physical distance. She crossed her arms over her chest, looking anywhere but down at Levi.

"Did Erwin tell you that I said that?" There was a strange heaviness to his question.

"Yes, he did." But even though the words had come from Erwin's mouth, Mikasa had heard their relentless echoes in Levi's dismissive, inflectionless voice. Now she wanted to hear them firsthand. He owed her that, at least.

"Is it true?" She asked. "Is that what you told the Commander?" As soon as the words left her mouth, though, she realized she _didn't_ want to hear him say it firsthand. She wanted him to deny it, to say that Commander Erwin must have told her that as some kind of cruel incentive to make her stay put, wanted him to say that he could never have said those words.

_Tell me that it was a lie, that you don't really think that. Tell me it isn't true._

"...Yes," he said softly, and it was much, much worse than hearing it in her head. "I told him that."

Worse still was that she couldn't hate him for it. The anger and resentment she'd harbored for him were long gone, and now there was nothing left to shield her vulnerable heart from how much his words hurt.

There was nothing more to say. All she wanted was _out._

The sound of footsteps nearing their cell half a minute later was a relief. Mikasa turned, mask of stone set rigidly in place, as a guard she didn't recognize stepped into view along with Commander Erwin.

She saluted automatically, earning a nod and a tight-lipped smile in return. The guard unlocked the cell door and stepped aside to make room for the Commander.

"Mikasa. Levi." His blue eyes flitted between them. "Are you both all right?"

"Affirmative, Sir," Mikasa replied as Levi stood up behind her. 

Commander Erwin's forced smile warmed slightly. "I'm happy to hear that. And I'm sorry you've had to wait so long. Commander Zacklay was delayed when I arrived, and in turn, so was my audience with him."

"I take it my name has been cleared?" Levi asked as he sidled by Mikasa. Neither one of them so much as glanced at the other, a purposeful brush-off that didn't go unnoticed by the Commander.

Erwin looked between the two of them curiously. "Yes," he said. His expression smoothed over. "You've been exonerated of all charges, and Commander Zacklay sends his personal regards."

"How generous of him." Levi sounded thoroughly unimpressed, though Mikasa did observe a slight easing of tension in his posture. "We're free to leave, then?"

Erwin nodded. "We are. A carriage is waiting for us outside."

Mikasa felt a surge of dismay. "Sir, my horse is in the Police stables. I can ride him back to base." As tired as she was, another taxing ride was much more appealing than being trapped in a carriage for hours with Levi and the Commander.

But it seemed she wouldn't be granted any such reprieve.

Levi turned, giving her a disparaging frown. "Don't be ridiculous, Ackerman. You're in no shape to ride; you all but dropped dead when you got here. The last thing we need is for you to pass out and fall off your damn horse."

Her temper flared. _Now who's being ridiculous?_ "I'm not going to fall off of my horse."

"Damn right; it's hard to fall off a horse when you're sitting in a carriage."

She stared daggers at him. "Heichou, I'm more than capable of riding back to base."

Levi didn't so much as blink. "Exhausted soldiers aren't what I'd call 'capable'."

"I'm not exhausted," she snapped, anger coloring her words. "I'm just tired of _you_."

His eyes widened at her audacity before narrowing dangerously. "Tough. If you think—"

Commander Erwin cleared his throat, silencing them.

Mikasa reddened, embarrassed at being so antagonistic in front of her commanding officer. And her embarrassment only deepened when she saw that despite putting on a polite mien, the Commander looked moderately uncomfortable at being caught in the cross hairs of their spat.

"Riding back won't be necessary, Mikasa," he said, tactfully ignoring the tension hanging in the air. "I've made arrangements for your horse and mine to be returned to headquarters presently."

Mikasa couldn't bring herself to meet his gaze. "Yes, Sir," she said meekly, and that was the end of it.

As she dutifully followed the Commander out of the cell, Mikasa wondered who was dreading the impending return journey most: her, Levi, or Commander Erwin.

 

**

When Henrik Braun finally left the central Police building where he worked and stepped out onto the street, the sun had already dipped below the Wall and the faint sliver of the new moon was shining overhead.

He cursed softly as he started for home, anticipating the scolding he was bound to receive. _Late again._ And Anita had told him she was making something special for dinner, had told him to hurry home before everything got cold. And he'd wanted nothing more than to do exactly that.

Problem was, execution days were always long ones.

Henrik had been the resident hangman in Stohess for nearly twenty years, and despite the crude nicknames some of the kids in the Police used for him when they thought he wasn’t listening (Sina Strangler and Old Noosey were the most common), Henrik didn’t really mind his job. The way he looked at it, even criminals deserved a comforting word before the end, and he always made sure to give them one – regardless of their crime. Death was a scary prospect after all, and public executions made it all the worse. Not only did the men who marched up his scaffold have to face the noose, but they also had to face the jeers and shouts of the crowd in attendance. And people took no pity on a condemned man, showed no mercy. So Henrik did.

Today had been no exception. When the Police had marched the prisoner up the steps – a man accused of treason – Henrik had slipped the noose over his head and took his time situating the rope around his neck, waited until the soldiers backed away before taking advantage of that last, private moment. And then he’d said what he said to all of them: _Today you face justice but tomorrow your conscience will be clear. May you find peace and rest on the next part of your journey._

Most times, the men he hanged thanked him for that bit of kindness, though occasionally they wouldn’t. Today, the prisoner hadn’t thanked him, hadn’t said anything at all.

But Henrik didn’t dwell on it as he made his way homeward. Instead, he thought of Anita’s cooking and how nice it would feel to slip into bed and rest his tired back.

When he was just a few blocks from home he stopped at a flower stand and purchased a bouquet of daisies, hoping that it would be enough of an apology to make Anita forgive his tardiness. He would’ve gotten something more colorful, but he couldn’t afford the more extravagant blooms. Anita wouldn't fault him for that, though; even though she preferred the vibrancy of sunflowers, she had always had a fondness for the simplicity of daisies.

He thanked the merchant with a tip of his hat and pocketed the spare change, beginning to hum idly as he rounded the final bends towards home.

But he stopped short when he turned down his street, eyes going wide in surprise, the tune he was humming dying mid-verse.

There, right in front of him, was a beautiful blonde woman sitting on a bench, silent tears streaming down her face. She looked slim and frail and very, very upset.

Henrik paused. He knew he was late, but he just wouldn’t feel right walking by someone in obvious distress without so much as a word.

_What’s a few more minutes? Anita will understand._

He stepped closer to the bench. “Excuse me, Miss,” he said, “are you all right?”

The blonde raised her head, and when she looked at him, her blue eyes were so cold that Henrik took an involuntary step away from her.

“No,” she said, voice hoarse, “I’m not.”

Now Henrik was wishing he _had_ just walked by. He swallowed. “Is there…is there anything I can do?”

The woman stood up, and suddenly she didn’t seem so frail anymore. She stood a few solid inches taller than him, and she was broader than he’d expected. She looked strong.

And beneath her red-rimmed, bleary eyes, she looked angry, the threat of a storm lingering in the tightness of her expression like a barely suppressed thunderstorm.

“There is nothing you can do now, Henrik Braun. The damage is already done.”

He took another step back, the hairs on his neck rising in alarm. “What damage? And how do you know my name?”

She practically snarled. “Everyone knows the hangman’s name,” came the reply. She shifted, revealing a wicked set of knives secured to her belt. She stepped toward him. “It was easy to get your name, Henrik, and it was easy to get your address.”

Henrik’s grip on the small bouquet tightened. “My address…?” Any pity he’d felt for the woman had completely dried up. He tasted bile in his throat. “Did you…did you hurt my wife?”

The blonde unsheathed one of her knives with a graceful flourish. “No.” She pointed the blade towards him. “My business is with you, not your wife.”

Henrik couldn’t lift his gaze from the blade. “What business? Who—who are you?”

Her snarl sharpened, her lips curling back to expose her teeth. “I'm a soldier who’s come to avenge her king.”

It clicked into place. _The man I executed today!_ He'd been accused of treason...

...for impersonating a king.

The woman took another step towards him and Henrik stumbled, the daisies slipping from his grip. He shot his hands out defensively as the bouquet landed at his feet, palms extended towards her. “Please,” he said. “What I do, it’s—it's just a job. I’m not the one who decides which prisoners live and which prisoners die.”

“Maybe not, but you were the one who put the noose around King Salazar’s neck and dropped the platform from beneath his feet. You were the one who killed him.” Her cold eyes flashed. “He deserved better than the likes of you.”

Henrik was so worried about the knife in her hand that he forgot to worry about other dangers. He yelped in surprise when the woman’s free hand shot out and grabbed him by the shirt. She jerked him forward, and Henrik felt the heavy weight of the blade resting against his carotid artery before he could blink. The steel was cold against his racing pulse.

He scrambled at her arms. “Please,” he begged. “Don’t do this. I have a wife. I have a family.”

She dug the blade in a little deeper. “And I had a king,” she said numbly.

Her eyes bored into his for a moment, her face so close to his that Henrik could see the faded tear tracks on her cheeks, and then as abruptly as she had grabbed him, she let him go. Gasping, Henrik rocked back on his heels, feeling a wash of relief as the blade left his throat.

But his relief was premature.

“One down…” The woman murmured.

She lunged forward with menacing purpose and without warning, and Henrik squawked in dismay as he felt an awful, ripping pain in his stomach. Eyes bulging, he stared down at the knife she’d stabbed into his belly, helpless to do anything but watch in horror as she dragged it across his abdomen and yanked it out the other side, opening him like a sack of potatoes.

Henrik fell to his knees and then face forward onto the ground, mouth gaping open in shock. He felt warm and hot and cold, all at the same time, but there was also a strange numbness spreading through his body, weighing down his senses like a heavy snowfall. As his vision began to fade, he saw Anita’s flowers, now soaked in a vibrant red, and behind them, the boot-clad feet of the woman that had murdered him.

He watched her boots turn away, but her voice carried back to him like a whisper in the wind as he drank in a few final, labored breaths.

“… _One to go_.”

 

**

It was cold and it was drizzling and the dusting of rain was slowly soaking the cadets’ uniforms and raising goosebumps on the skin beneath, but none of them noticed or made any move to go back inside the shelter of the castle walls. They were all too captivated by the lone man on the practice course, watching with dumbfounded expressions as he whirled in and around the makeshift Titans and cut them down in a quick succession of kamikaze dives. Each attack was fluid, effortless, and lightning fast, making it hard for the eye to even track him as he arced through the sky.

Auggie shivered. “Have any of you guys seen anything even remotely like this before?” He asked. He couldn’t keep the astonishment from his voice.

Bia was the first to answer. “Never,” she said with a shake of her head, eyes still glued to the practice course. “I mean, I’ve heard the stories just like all of you, but seeing him in action is just…wow.”

Auggie flipped his sandy bangs out of his eyes, shaking away the water droplets to get a clearer view of the reinstated Captain.

When Commander Erwin had called a full Corps meeting two days prior, none of them had known what to expect, though most of them assumed it would have something to do with the sudden postponement of their expedition. Instead, they’d been treated to the surprise of their lives when the Commander had arrived with none other than the notorious Captain Levi at his side. Commander Erwin had introduced the shorter man, making a point to emphasize his rank, and then he'd proceeded to tell all of them the real story behind Levi’s crafted desertion.

Needless to say, if Captain Levi had had a fearsome reputation before that moment, it was only compounded afterwards. He was all anyone could talk about, and when rumors had spread that he was planning on taking to the practice course to make sure his gear was still in working order, everyone had made a beeline for the yard, weather be damned.

 _And it was worth it_ , Auggie thought, even as he shivered again. He watched the Captain slice through the final dummy’s neck and land on the opposite end of the course with an agile flip, facing away from the group of onlookers.

The man had made the entire spectacle look like child's play, and Auggie could only imagine what it would be like to see him taking down real Titans. Despite his fear of going outside the walls, Auggie felt a buzz of excitement at the prospect of watching Captain Levi in action.

“Ya know, I think I’m a little less nervous for this expedition now knowing that _he’s_ going to be with us,” Tomas commented.

“Definitely,” his brother chimed in. “Did you guys hear that he and Commander Erwin are going to shuffle some of us around? I wonder who he’s going to pick for his squad.” He shot Raina a teasing, sidelong glance. “Think he’ll choose you, Ray? I mean, now that he knows firsthand how lethal you are.”

“Oh my God, _shut up_!” Raina shoved him, which only made Axel laugh harder than he already was. Her ears turned bright red. “How was I supposed to know he was a good guy?”

Bia left her place beside Milo and stepped between the two, playing referee. “Ray’s got a point,” she said. “Nobody knew he was undercover.”

Axel shrugged. “True. But most of us found that out when Commander Erwin told us, not by, you know, throwing a shoe at the man’s face the night he got back.”

“I thought he was going to attack me!”

Tomas frowned. “Wait. Weren’t _you_ in _his_ room?”

Axel smirked.

Raina gave the twins an exasperated groan. “Yeah, but it was just an empty room at the time; no one ever went in there!” She pouted. “And besides: if you hadn’t been acting like a dickhead, Axel, I wouldn’t have been hiding out there in the first place.”

The teasing look died on Axel’s face. “I wasn’t being a dickhead,” he said sheepishly.

“You’re always being a dickhead,” Raina shot back. “And now the strongest, most badass soldier in history is going to forever remember me as the psycho girl who throws shoes. Thanks for that.”

Bia squeezed the tiny blonde’s shoulder. “But at least you’re a cute psycho, right?”

A twinge of a reluctant smile tugged at Raina’s lips. “The cutest,” she mumbled, half-heartedly shrugging Bia’s hand off.

Auggie rolled his eyes at the whole situation. Axel and Raina were constantly either teasing each other or fighting with each other, and sometimes Auggie got whiplash just trying to keep up. Usually he didn’t try to.

“I think I’m going to go talk to him,” he said, reining the conversation back in.

That shut everyone up.

“What about?” Tomas asked.

Auggie self-consciously rubbed at the back of his neck. “Well, I think I might volunteer to join his squad. I know that’s not really how it works, but…” He shrugged. “I could at least go introduce myself. I mean, it seems like a better thing to do than stand here gawking at him all day long.”

Axel clapped him on the back. “Good for you, man. I say go for it.”

Raina nodded towards something over his shoulder. “Why don’t you go talk to Sasha and Eren and Peach Fuzz first? See if they have any advice. They’ve been in his squad before, after all.”

 _Peach Fuzz?_ Auggie turned to ascertain to whom exactly that moniker referred, and then he sighed when he realized it, shaking his head. “Ray, you really shouldn’t call Connie that. He’s a senior cadet.”

“Sasha was the one who came up with that name, not me. And it does kind of suit him.”

 _Yeah, it kind of does,_ Auggie had to admit as he glanced back at the three older cadets that had emerged from the castle. Sasha and Connie were talking to each other, arms gesturing animatedly, and Eren was facing the training grounds, a slightly awed smile on his face as he watched Captain Levi slice through a second round of wooden Titans.

“They were all in the Special Ops Squad?” He asked.

Raina nodded. “Yeah, and they seem pretty happy to have their Captain back – I saw them all eating dinner together last night. Expect for Squad Leader Ackerman. She was in his squad too, but I haven’t seen her around much lately.” She frowned. “Actually, I haven’t seen her since the day that redheaded woman showed up.” She looked at Bia. “Have you?”

Bia chewed her lip, thinking. “Now that you mention it, no – I haven’t seen her either.”

“I heard that she went with the Commander to Stohess. Maybe she’s still there?”

“No, I’m pretty sure she’s back. Maybe she’s avoiding us? Or maybe she’s not as thrilled as the rest of Special Ops that the Captain is back?”

“Maybe. Do you guys think there’s bad blood between them?”

“I think all of you should stop this ridiculous guessing game.”

Milo’s stern request came across like a reprimand, instantly quieting their chatter. His mocha eyes turned on each of them in reproach. “We’re better than a bunch of gossips, aren’t we?”

Auggie raised his eyebrows at that, wondering not for the first time what exactly Mikasa Ackerman had told Milo the night he’d gone to apologize to her. Ever since then, the dark-skinned boy had been a little different. He kept his more caustic opinions to himself, and Auggie hadn't heard him once bring up the Captain. He also seemed to have a newfound respect for Squad Leader Ackerman. While not official yet, rumor had it that Milo was going to be in her squad on the upcoming expedition.

“You’re right,” he acknowledged, giving Milo a supportive nod. “We shouldn’t be talking about our superiors just to entertain ourselves.”

"Okay," Bia said. She stepped forward and looped an arm through Auggie's. "Let's not gossip, then. Let's go talk to Sasha and the guys. They can probably answer all of our questions, and you can see about getting introduced to Mr. Badass."

"Sure," Auggie blankly agreed, too distracted by the fact that Bia was touching him to really pay attention to what she was saying.

Not that Bia seemed to notice. "Are the rest of you gonna tag along?"

" _Hell_ no," Raina said with a shake of her blonde head. "I think I've made enough of an impression on him already, thanks." And before any of the others could change her mind, she gave Axel one last shove and jogged back towards the castle.

The twins watched her go, guilty smirks on their faces.

"Nice going, you two," Bia chided.

"Aw, she'll get over it," Tomas said.

"We'll see," Bia said, reeling everyone in. She tugged on Auggie's arm. "C'mon. We can worry about Ray later."

Auggie followed her obligingly and the twins fell into step on either side of them.

It wasn't until they'd reached Sasha and the others that Auggie realized Milo wasn't with them. He looked back, searching for him, but the dark-skinned boy was nowhere to be found.

 

**

Standing in front of Mikasa’s door was giving Levi an awful sense of déjà-vu. Granted, it was a different door – she was a squad leader now and had a room in the officers’ wing – but it still took him back to the night he’d left. The atmosphere of the castle was dark, quiet, subdued… much like it had been on the eve of his departure.

He let his fingertips glide along the wood, briefly wondering how different things would have been if he’d knocked on her door that night.

Only briefly, however. Levi had never been one to dwell on past decisions.

He rapped three times, the same hushed, measured knocks he used to employ when paying her a late visit. He clenched his jaw at the memory and waited, half hoping that she wouldn’t answer.

But of course she did.

“It’s open,” came the muffled sound of her voice through the door.

Levi turned the knob and stepped through, taking in the simple furnishings of her room as he closed the door softly behind him. It was neater than he would have expected – not up to his standards, of course (he had to forcibly tear his eyes away from the layer of dust coating her dresser and bedside table) – but clean and organized nonetheless, down to the straight stack of folders on her desk and the freshly laundered uniform folded on a chair in the corner.

Strange; he remembered that she’d always been a bit messy. It was one of the reasons they’d spent more nights in his room than hers.

He pushed the thought aside.

Mikasa was standing by the window, silhouetted by the soft rays of the setting sun. She was looking at him, her face a blank canvas, her arms crossed defensively over her chest.

Levi didn’t say anything, unsure how or where to begin.

But Mikasa didn’t let the silence stand. “What do you need, Heichou?” She asked, her tone as vacant as her expression.

Levi felt his already lousy mood souring. _So that’s how it’s going to be, is it?_ He shouldn’t have been surprised. Her coldness wasn’t unexpected, not after the the way they'd left things back in the prison cell. She'd look so dejected, so beaten down by his comments that he'd almost recanted them. But he hadn't, and she hadn't spoken to him since.

“I need some cadet files. Erwin told me that you had them.” He lowered his voice. “And you and I need to talk, Mikasa.” They needed to reestablish some semblance of a professional rapport, even if their private relationship was beyond ruined. A rift between officers could spell disaster in the field. It was better for everyone if they could at least communicate with each other.

And Levi didn't know how long he could cope with her ignoring him. Her fists and fury were far preferable than the fucking cold shoulder she was giving him now. Hell, even the animosity she'd all but burned in his direction her first months in the Corps would be more tolerable than her newfound apathy.

But she didn't seem keen on reconciling. She turned away from him, defensively facing the window in order to shut him out. “The files are in the top drawer of my desk,” she said numbly. “Take whichever ones you need.”

“Mikasa—”

“Just take them and go, Heichou. Please.”

Levi clenched his hands, resisting the urge to go spin her around and force her to face him, to tear down her damn walls, to watch her break so that he could kiss her broken pieces, to tell her how fucking sorry he was and how much he still wanted her – how much he would _always_ want her.

But he couldn’t do that, because he’d finally pushed her away, had finally turned whatever feelings she’d had for him to ice. And that had been the goal all along.

Success had never felt more like a loss.

He strode over to her desk and opened the drawer she’d indicated, distracting himself from his pathetic self-pity by rummaging through the papers littered inside. The orderliness of her room didn't extend to her desk, he quickly realized. The files were haphazardly shoved inside, some of the papers spilling out of their designated folders, others dog-eared and crinkled from being carelessly moved around. It was only by dumb luck that he managed to find most of the files he was searching for, let alone  _any_ of them. 

_What a mess._

He had just about reached the bottom when he felt something odd brush his fingertips.

He frowned. It wasn’t paper; it was much softer than that, much more delicate. Curious, he curled his fingers around the foreign item and pulled it up through the mess of files, lifting it out of the drawer.

And Levi could have sworn his heart stopped.

There, clutched in his hand, was his own cravat. The white linen was wrinkled and dirty, but there was no mistaking it. It was definitely his cravat. Mikasa had his cravat.

Levi placed it down on the top of her desk, fingers smoothing over its familiar fabric.

“Mikasa…” He snapped his teeth together, too stunned to continue.

She turned away from the window. “Do you need help finding—” Her question cut off into a sharp intake of breath as soon as she saw the cravat.

Her eyes met his, and they were no longer expressionless. “Heichou, I…” She stammered. “I…”

Levi swallowed. “When did you...how long have you had this?” His voice was low, husky.

“Since the day you left,” she admitted softly.

Her answer stole his equilibrium, and Levi gripped the corners of her desk to steady himself. In all of the scenarios his mind had conjured up about how Mikasa would react to him leaving, he’d never once thought she might… that she would…

“Why?” He choked.

Mikasa looked at him in a way he'd only ever seen her look at Eren Jaeger. “You know why, Levi,” she whispered. She took a deep breath, and then it was all spilling out of her. “I know what we decided back in Stohess, but you… I never thought you would just _leave_.” There was a tremor in her voice but she continued anyway, like she’d had the words bottled up for too long and now she couldn’t stop them from pouring out. “I thought something had happened to you, but then Commander Erwin told me about your mission, told me everything – that you think I’m a liability, that you made the choice to go without me…” She pressed her lips together, regrouping. “I understand your reasons for not trusting me when I first joined the Corps. I was defiant and impetuous and I didn’t want anything to do with you because of what you’d done to Eren. But I changed, and after everything we’ve been through I thought your opinion of _me_ had changed, too. I thought you trusted me the way I've come to trust you.” She blinked away the tears that were gathering in her grey eyes and kept her chin held high, proud even in her pain. Her tone sharpened. “Now I know that I was wrong.”

Levi felt like someone had sucker-punched him. “You think I don’t trust you?” He finally said, words thick with disbelief. “You think _that_ is the reason I chose to go alone?” He began to move towards her, approaching her with measured steps.

“Yes.” Mikasa held her ground. “What other reason would there be?”

“The right one,” he said, drawing closer. “One that has nothing to do with my opinion of you as a soldier or comrade.” He stopped, standing barely an arms’ length away from her, the chasm between them wide and deep.

Levi decided to cross it. “There are very few people I trust in this world, Mikasa,” he said quietly, honestly, “but you are one of them.”

Mikasa’s stoicism faltered. “If that’s true,” she whispered, “then why didn’t you want me to help you? Why didn’t you tell me where you were going?”

He sighed. “Because you would have insisted on coming. You’re a pain in my ass, Ackerman. A stubborn one.” His lips tugged downwards. “And you already pushed your luck once, don’t forget. I didn’t want your martyr complex kicking in if I fucked up again.” He frowned at her chest, at the spot where her newest scar was concealed beneath her shirt. “You can only survive so many bullets, Mikasa." He watched her chest rise and fall, watched her ribcage expand and contract as she breathed. Her breaths were strong now, but he remembered when they'd been shallow and weak, when he feared they would cease altogether. He tore his gaze away. "I wanted you safe,” he said.

“But you didn’t even say goodbye, Levi. You just left.”

His brow creased unhappily. “I did what I thought was best. For both of us. I thought it would make it easier for us to move on.”

Mikasa stepped forward, a strange determination radiating from her pores as she stared him down. “And did you move on, Heichou?”

The corners of his mouth tightened but he didn’t reply, just gave her a look that screamed _don’t go there._

So naturally she did. Mikasa had never been one to back down from a confrontation, least of all one with him.

She took another step forward, crowding him, and Levi could detect that lovely scent of pine that always seemed to cling to her. It was a scent that had somehow, over time, become for him the headiest kind of aphrodisiac, and now it was the only one that had the power to affect him so deeply. He held his breath.

“If you moved on then walk away,” Mikasa challenged, her dark eyes holding his with flaming intensity. “You say that we need to make our own choices, Heichou, so make yours: leave or stay. Choose. But know that I’ll be standing right here because I haven’t moved on and I don’t want to.”

She had barely finished speaking when Levi turned away abruptly, putting his back to her. He needed time to think, to clear his head, and he couldn’t do that with Mikasa Ackerman flooding his senses.

But he didn’t walk away, didn’t take a single step towards the door. He stayed rooted where he stood, shoulders tensed, muscles bunching beneath his shirt, indecision waging a war in his mind.

“Levi.”

He shut his eyes, wishing he could shut out the sound of her voice.

“Did you want me to hate you?” Her voice was small, little more than a shimmer of sound in the stillness of the room. “Is that why you told the Commander those things? Is that why you left without saying anything?”

He let her words hang in the air. He didn’t answer her, but then again he didn’t need to. She was right and both of them knew it.

“It didn’t work, Levi. I don’t hate you.”

As if to reaffirm her words, the first thing Levi saw when he opened his eyes was his cravat, resting where he’d left it on the stark surface of her desk.

The desk where she’d kept it stowed away for four months.

He'd expected her to move on, to let go, but instead she’d held on - she'd held on _to him._ And it rattled Levi to his very marrow because up until that moment, he hadn't known what it felt like to have someone care so much.

It broke him.

“Fuck it,” he said, and then he turned around and reached for her.

Mikasa met him halfway, her hands latching onto his shirt as he grabbed at her arms, shoulders, waist, as he tangled a shaking hand in her hair. She clutched at him just as desperately, fingers dragging up his chest and along the collar of his shirt before raking up through his newly trimmed undercut. “You're impossible, Heichou...”

“So are you,” he whispered, and then he crushed his lips to hers.

If the suspension before their lips met had been the eye of the storm, then their kiss was the heart of it – billowing and angry and anything but calm. The force of it had both of them buckling where they stood, knees wobbling and hands groping, a torrent of repressed emotions ranging from anger and frustration to guilt and need and _want_ fueling every lash of their tongues, every bruising press of fingertips against skin. And in the midst of it all, Levi was walking them backwards, cursing as they tripped over their tangled feet but never breaking their kiss, never letting an inch of space separate them.

When they reached her desk he swept the folders and papers he'd put there out of the way and hoisted her up onto it, pressing her back as he crawled over her. He scattered the remaining encumbrances away to make more room for them, vaguely aware of his cravat as it drifted to the floor.

Mikasa pulled back, gasping through swollen lips. “I thought you didn’t like messes,” she breathed, fingers tightening in his shirt as he brought his thigh up between her legs and pressed it with unambiguous purpose against her core. Her head thudded back against the wood at the sensation, eyelashes fluttering.

Levi felt his throat go dry at the sight of her. How had he gone four months without this?

He leaned down to nip at her exposed neck. “I’ll temporarily make an exception,” he said, shuddering at the way her pulse jumped beneath his teeth.

Mikasa squirmed beneath him, gasping, and then she was all action. Her lips bruised their own kiss on his neck, branding him, and Levi felt her fingers skating beneath his shirt and trailing along the hard ridges of his abdomen before dipping lower. He groaned as she flirted with the waistband of his boxers, buried his face in her neck as she palmed his clothed erection and ran her capable fingers teasingly down his length.

It was too much; _she_ was too much. Sensory fucking overload. Cursing, Levi yanked her hand out of his pants and pressed his body flush against hers, pinning her. He rocked his hips against hers, hard, and Mikasa moaned, urging him to do it again. She wrapped her legs around him, pulling him in closer, her breath hot on his skin, her lips wet as they dragged across his jaw and up to his mouth.

 _Hot and wet and needy…_ Holy fuck. He wanted to be inside of her so badly it was painful.

He pulled back to catch his breath, his throat constricting when he saw the way Mikasa was staring up at him – eyes wild and pupils blown black with lust.

There was no doubt in his mind that he looked as wrecked as she did, probably more so.

“Do you want to move to the bed?” She asked, the breathlessness of her tone making Levi harder than he already was.

“No,” he said, voice like smoke. “I want you here. Now.”

She licked her lips and his gaze flickered to the pink dart of her tongue before traveling back up to her eyes, and then he was kissing her again, angling her head so he could press in deeper, mimicking the motion of his tongue with his hips.

Mikasa seemed as desperate as he was to get closer, to feel more of each other, and before long Levi felt her hands at the buttons of his shirt and working to undo his belt and…

_“Mikasa?!”_

Both of them froze, their libidos instantly cooling at the sound of that all too familiar voice.

 _No,_ Levi thought. _No fucking way._

“M-Mikasa, who is…?”

Levi watched as panic flooded Mikasa’s grey eyes. She shoved at him, her elbows digging painfully into his ribs in her haste to push him away, and then she was frantically scrambling off of the desk, righting her clothing and turning towards the door that neither of them had thought to lock.

Eren was standing in the doorway, one hand still wrapped around the doorknob, green eyes wide and shocked beneath his furrowed brows as he looked first at her and then at Levi. When he saw his Captain his jaw nearly hit the floor. “H-Heichou?” He stammered, gazing at Levi with all the confusion of a lost puppy. “What is…what are you…?”

Levi had half a mind to snap _what does it fucking look like, Jaeger?_ at him, but the death glare Mikasa shot in his direction made him stay wisely silent.

Eren continued to stare at him in dumbfounded disbelief, his features a mixed cocktail of unstable emotions. Levi didn’t think the brat could’ve managed to look any more shocked if he’d opened the door and found Titans brawling inside.

Mikasa took a step towards the door, holding out her hand in a placating gesture. “Eren, listen to me—”

“The two of you…are you… _together_?” He stumbled back, shaking his head. “No, you…you would have told me, right? Right?!”

“Eren, please—”

“No.” He looked like he was going to be sick. “I don’t want to hear it,” he said, and with a final, hurt glance at the two of them, Eren turned and bolted.

Mikasa started after him before he was even fully out the door, but Levi grabbed her arm, holding her back. “Mikasa, don’t.”

She whirled on him, shaking free of his grip and scratching him painfully in the process, the panic in her eyes now tempered with anger. “Don’t?” She shouted. “Levi, he _saw_ us! I have to talk to him. I have to explain—”

Levi caught hold of her again. “Not right now. He won’t listen; he’s too upset. You’re too upset.”

She struggled against him for a second, but when she realized he wasn't going to let her go she seemed to think better of it. She took a deep breath, calming slightly. Her jaw clenched. “Maybe you’re right. What would I tell him, anyway? Hm?" Her tone became acidic. "That we’re not _really_ together, we just fuck sometimes?” She jerked her arm away.

 _That_ gave him a start. He’d never even heard her utter a curse in the heat of battle, let alone in private. And yet the word had rolled so bluntly off of her tongue, impactful in its harshness. It made everything between them sound so flippant, so unimportant.

Which it wasn’t.

“Of course not,” he growled. “That’s not what this is.”

“Then what _is_ this, Levi? What are we to each other?” She crossed her arms. "If you care at all, you'll answer the question."

Every word was a dagger, and Levi couldn’t deflect a single one or throw any of his own. He stared at her, wanting to give in, wanting to tell her what both of them yearned to hear, but his fears prevented his surrender. “I can’t, Mikasa," he rasped. "I can't give you what you want.”

“Can’t or won’t? There’s a difference, Levi.” She marched to her door, her whole frame wound tight with anger. She glanced at him over her shoulder. “You said we had to be strong enough to walk away, but I don’t accept that. Come find me when you’re brave enough not to.”

And then she left him standing there in her room, alone and defeated.

 

**

It had been days since anyone other than the young cadet tasked with bringing her meals had come anywhere near her cell, so when Annie Leonhardt heard the scuffing sounds of approaching boots, it immediately caught her attention. She perched herself up a little taller on her cot, though she kept her legs crossed and her hands in her pockets, not wanting to appear overly interested.

Seconds later, her new visitor came into sight.

Annie blinked.  _Eren?_

She didn’t say anything – she had no intention of breaking the silence she’d kept for four months – but she was unable to completely keep the surprise off of her face.

She'd seen a few familiar faces since the day Commander Erwin had left her to rot in the Corps' deepest dungeon, but never Eren, never anyone from the 104th. She'd held out some hope in the beginning that Bertholt or Reiner would come for her, but then days and weeks had passed and she'd come to terms with the fact that her fellow shifters - and the only two real friends she had left - were either long gone or dead. She didn't allow herself to dwell on which one of those possibilities was the truth.

Eren stood there for a moment, just staring at her, and then he slid down against the wall opposite the bars of her cell until he was sitting on the ground. He crossed his legs and rested his elbows on his knees, almost mimicking the way Annie was sitting on her cot. Instead of putting his hands in his pockets, though, he held his head, fingers tugging at his messy hair.

“Hi, Annie,” he said without looking up. He chuckled a little woodenly when she gave no reply. “I’m not supposed to be here, you know. Talking to you. But I guess it doesn’t really count if you don’t talk back, right?”

Annie frowned. She couldn’t remember a time she’d seen him looking so dejected. Then again, she’d missed a lot. Maybe this was just how he was now.

“No one talks to me anymore,” he continued. “Not even Mikasa.”

Annie couldn’t hide her reaction at that, though she managed not to blurt anything out loud. _Mikasa’s alive?_ All this time, she’d thought his dark-haired sister was dead, killed by the bullet not meant for her.

 _So I didn't kill you after all._ That news was more welcome to Annie than she would have expected.

She watched as Eren began to trace designs over the dust on the floor, his finger moving slowly, idly. He went on for a while like that, and every so often he would erase whatever it was with the flat of his palm and move on to a different patch of dust. Creation and destruction, inextricably intermingled and not so different from the paradoxical impulses of a human Titan.

Finally his fingers stilled and he looked up. “Mikasa’s been acting strange for a while," he said in a low voice, "but every time I tried to ask her what was wrong, she just shut down. Now I know why. All this time, Mikasa and…and Levi Heichou are…they’ve been…”

Annie froze. He didn't need to spell it out for her to know what he was trying to say; it was written all over his face.

And at last Annie had the answer as to why Mikasa had taken the bullet for Captain Levi.

_You've always been willing to sacrifice it all for the ones you love, haven't you, Mikasa?_

Eren pounded his fists into the ground, shaking Annie out of her thoughts. “Why didn’t she tell me?" He shouted, green eyes unnaturally bright with emotion. "Why does _no one_ ever tell me?!” He stood up and started pacing outside of her cell, his movements jerky with anger. “Everyone keeps the truth from me, like they all think I can’t handle it. My father, Armin, Mikasa, Levi Heichou, Bertholt, Reiner, _you_ …” He glanced over at her accusingly. “Even you, Annie. And you’re _like_ me! We could have helped each other.” He stopped suddenly, gripping the bars of her cell. “Why?” He said brokenly, tears of hurt beginning to roll down his cheeks. His knuckles whitened. “Why doesn’t anyone ever think I deserve the truth?!”

He leaned his head against the bars, panting in ragged breaths while his emotional rage coursed through him. At last he quieted, shoulders slumping. He sniffled. "I never wanted to fight you, you know. When everyone else was trying to convince me you were the Female Titan, I didn't believe them." His glassy eyes homed in on her face. "I didn't want to doubt you because you were my friend." He swallowed. "Even now, I still...I still think of you as my friend."

Annie's gut twisted. She’d forgotten how open, how honest Eren was, and it tugged at her even though she wished that it didn't. She dropped her gaze to the ground, shutting him out.

"Maybe I'm just an idiot," he said. He let go of the bars. "Maybe I really _don't_ deserve the truth."

By the time Annie looked up Eren was gone, but his words echoed in her mind long after his shuffling footsteps faded.

She stared down at her hands, at the ugly scars that cut straight through the middle of her palms. They were _her_ truth, a corporeal reminder of the vengeance she'd instilled in one man because of the awful things she'd done. Captain Levi had called her a monster - had called himself one too - right before he'd shot her with a fifth arrow.

Eren had never called her that.

_I still think of you as my friend._

Annie tugged the sleeves of her hoodie down over her scarred hands. "You deserve better friends, Eren," she whispered to the empty cell.

 

**

As Eren made his way up from the dungeons, he was oblivious to everything around him, too upset to see past his own hurt.

Little did he know that he and Annie hadn't been alone, that every word he'd spoken had also been heard by the cadet watching from the shadows.

 

**

There was something hauntingly beautiful about castles.

Serena would never have said so aloud, seeing as most of the memories she’d acquired over the years in such grand places had been negative in nature, and yet she couldn’t deny that the architectural magnificence of the stone mammoths was something to behold. The Corps castle may not have been a regal one, but like all castles, its very nature gave it a sense of majesty. High, arched ceilings, lonely stretches of winding corridors, grand rooms with enormous windows that offered sweeping views of the countryside beyond… It was all such a welcome contrast to the cramped city life to which she had grown accustomed.

Serena would miss it when she left.

She would miss a lot of things.

Fighting off a chill – the old stones could only retain so much heat, after all – Serena wrapped her sweater more tightly about her shoulders. She was on her way back to her temporary quarters, and she’d almost reached them when she decided to make a detour to the kitchens.

She didn’t expect that anyone would be there – it was past the time most cadets took their breakfast but still much too early for an afternoon respite – and yet there was one person sitting alone at a wooden table in the back of the room, an old teakettle his only company.

Serena smiled as she made her way over to him. “Good morning, Levi,” she said in greeting as she pulled out a chair adjacent him and folded herself into it. He looked more sullen than usual, the dark circles beneath his eyes casting a certain pallor to the rest of his face. Intuition told her it was likely due more to stress than sleeplessness, though the latter was no doubt a byproduct of the former.

“You haven’t touched your tea,” she commented, nodding towards the full kettle and dry cup in front of him.

“I’m not in the mood for tea.”

She raised a lofty brow. “Then why did you brew it?”

“Habit.” He pushed the cup towards her. “Help yourself, if you’d like.”

Although tea sounded lovely, she ignored it for the moment. She leaned her elbows on the table, trying to catch his eye. “Maybe later. First tell me what’s bothering you.” She waited for him to answer. When he didn't, she added: "If you don't tell me, I'll start guessing. And we both know it won't take me long to guess correctly."

He scowled. “Eren Jaeger.”

“That’s a name, Levi, not an answer.”

“I’m aware of that.” His hooded eyes finally flickered over to her. “I was with Mikasa last night. Eren walked in on us.”

Serena’s mouth formed a small _oh_. Even if she'd employed her best deductive skills and considered the most unlikely possibilities, _that_ was one scenario she would not have come up with. She lightly cleared her throat to try and mask her surprise. “That is…unfortunate.”

“Yes, but not really the problem. I couldn’t give two shits what other people think about my personal life.”

Serena tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear. “But Mikasa doesn’t concur,” she stated. It wasn’t a guess; she remembered how uncomfortable the reserved girl had been back in Stohess beneath her speculative gaze. She could only imagine how badly she’d reacted to being caught in the middle of something much more intimate.

“No, she doesn’t,” Levi affirmed. “I expected her to be upset. She was.”

Serena saw his gaze flicker to his hand, drawing her own there as well. There were four raised red lines marring the back of his hand and wrist, thin and superficial but obviously new, and no doubt the work of one angry, dark-haired woman.

“I see,” Serena murmured. She sighed. “I take it you haven’t worked things out with her.”

“No.” He looked decidedly unhappy – even for him. “You were right.” The admittance was quiet, reluctant. “Mikasa didn’t move on.”

“Neither did you.” Serena leaned over and gently squeezed his hand. “Levi, what are you so afraid of? If you both want to be together then you should be together. It’s not as complicated as you’re making it out to be.”

“Everything is complicated, Serena.” He pulled his hand away and leaned back in his chair. “Speaking of which…how is Erwin today?”

Serena narrowed her eyes. “Don’t take cheap shots, Levi; it’s childish.”

It _was_ childish, yet she still felt the need to busy herself by pouring a cup of tea. She tilted the kettle, watching the liquid stream from the spout and into the mug so that she wouldn’t have to look at Levi. “I’m leaving tomorrow,” she said.

“I know. Erwin told me.” He paused. “Neither of you seems pleased about it.”

Serena didn’t have to see him to know that Levi was watching her closely, searching for a reaction.

“I wasn’t just your emissary while you were undercover, Levi; I was Erwin’s too.” She took a leisurely sip of tea, deliberately taking her time. “Being in such frequent communication… it was impossible not to learn things about one another. Our current amicability is an incidental result of that.” She set the cup down and took a long inhale, trying to calm her suddenly accelerated heartbeat. “He’s a good man and a wise leader. I understand why you value him as a friend.”

“Huh.” Levi tilted his head speculatively. “What a coincidence.”

Serena frowned. “How so?”

“He said the same thing about you.”

Serena was about to answer him when she was struck by a wave of dizziness. She gripped the table, breathing hard. “I…”

Her pulse wasn’t slowing, and when she tried to swallow, it felt like something thick and heavy was lodged in her throat. Panic seized her. _What is going on?_ She stood abruptly, the tea sloshing in her cup as she jostled the table.

"Oi," Levi said, hand shooting out to stop it from spilling. "What's gotten into you?" He looked up at her and stopped, his chiding tone immediately replaced by worry. "Serena?"

 _I don't know what's wrong._ She couldn't be suffering from an allergic reaction; she didn't have any allergies. And food poisoning was out of the question because she hadn't had so much as a bite of anything to eat all day, hadn't taken so much as a sip of...

 _The tea!_ Her emerald eyes flew wide open in realization. “Levi,” she gasped. “Help.”

Levi was out of his chair and by her side in a flash, his arms steadying her. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

Breathing was getting more and more difficult. “Poison…” She managed. “The tea…poisoned.” It had to be. There was no other logical explanation.

Levi looked stricken. “No, it—”

She clutched weakly at his arms. “No time…” She wheezed. She couldn’t push the words out to explain it to him or convince him. Whatever it was, the poison was fast-acting. Whoever was responsible had known what they were doing.

“You have to make me sick.” The words sounded clear in her mind but they were slurred and incoherent on her tongue. Serena wanted to scream. _Please understand me, Levi. I’m going to die if you don’t._ She tried again. “Get something…make me sick.”

He let her go without another word, bolting from the room.

Serena collapsed where she stood, cringing in pain as her body landed hard, her limbs unable to brace her fall. Exerting a great amount of effort, she rolled onto her side and tried to push herself up into a seated position, only to have her arms give out. She landed on her back and stayed there, staring up through tangled strands of red hair that had fallen across her face. Her vision was swimming, the ceiling above her coming in and out of focus. She closed her eyes.

_Please not like this. I don’t want to die like this._

She clutched uselessly at the stones beneath her as she sucked in a shallow lungful of air, the only outward form of her desperate internal struggle. Dizziness and terror pressed in, and in her delirium, Serena almost wished she could rip her throat out just to stop the awful, choking constriction bearing down on her.

_Hurry, Levi. Please don’t let me die this way. Hurry._

Her awareness began to fade but Serena held on, listening for the sound of running feet or his voice calling her name, clinging to the hope that Levi could save her life like he’d saved it once before.

But in her last moments of consciousness, Serena heard only silence.

 

**

After an hour of waiting at the agreed upon locale with no sign of her contact, Tamsin finally succumbed to the aches in her body and sat down against the wall. She leaned her head back and exhaled, her breath a translucent fog in the night sky.

Despite the cold and her building anxiety, Tamsin found herself admiring the tapestry of Mother Nature, the beautiful hues of blue, black, and grey that swirled overhead. It was an overcast night, the stars almost all blanketed by cloud cover, and the light of the moon was only strong enough to penetrate the outer edges of the puffy accumulations, leaving haloed outlines in an otherwise deep darkness.

Tamsin wondered if Salazar had been able to see the moon his last night on Earth or if his prison cell had stripped him of even that measly comfort. Angry tears pooled in her eyes at the injustice of it all.

_Forgive me, Sire. I couldn’t save you._

Her king was dead, while _Levi_ was still breathing. His untimely pardon had been her plan’s undoing. Salazar had been scheduled to be executed two days later than Levi, but when the little fucker’s Commander had shown up in person to pardon him, Salazar had taken Levi’s place on the scaffold, for no better reason than _the hangman’s already here; why waste his time?_ Or some shit like that. Bottom line was, Levi had weaseled his way out and Salazar had died because of it. If Levi had just died like he was supposed to, Tamsin would’ve gotten there in plenty of time to free Salazar. But nothing that was supposed to happen ever seemed to, and now all she had left was her need for vengeance, the burning desire to carve Levi into little bits of Titan chow and feed him to swine. Now that Salazar was gone, revenge was her sole motivation for living.

Heaven help anyone who tried to keep her from achieving it.

“Tamsin.”

The faint whisper had her on her feet in a flash and facing the hooded figure that had appeared from the nearly invisible castle door. There was no handle on the outside to admit reentrance, so the person kept it propped open with their foot.

“Show me,” Tamsin ordered tersely, knowing that it would be unnecessary to expound on that request if the individual was indeed her contact.

The figure rolled up their sleeve and bared the underside of their arm, displaying the only sign of allegiance that mattered in Tamsin’s eyes: the Olympian sigil. She relaxed. “I recognize you,” she said.

Her contact quickly pushed their sleeve back down, concealing the small tattoo once more. “And I you,” they said. Their face was completely hidden beneath the cowl of their hood, but Tamsin could still hear the shake in their voice when they asked the question she dreaded to answer. “Is it true, Tamsin? Is my father dead?”

“Yes.” The word burned like acid on her tongue. “King Salazar has been taken from us.”

Her contact didn’t respond, but Tamsin heard the choked sob they tried to hide.

“We will avenge him,” Tamsin vowed. “I swear it. I’ve already seen to the hangman, and together we can kill Levi.” She thought of the instructions she’d sent before Salazar’s execution. “Unless,” she added, “you’ve already taken care of him yourself?”

The hood moved side to side as the person beneath shook their head. “No, he’s still alive, even though it makes no sense.”

Tamsin frowned. “What do you mean?”

“While I was on kitchen duty this morning, I poisoned his tea. He keeps his own private stash so I thought it was a safe bet that he would drink it. The dosage I used was lethal enough to kill a man twice his size.”

“Then how exactly is he still breathing?”

“Like I said, it makes no sense. He should be dead.”

Though she wouldn’t admit it, Tamsin was almost happy that the poison had failed to kill Levi. Now she would have the chance to personally experience the triumph of watching the light die in his beady eyes.

“Don’t take this failure to heart,” she said. “Poison isn’t a violent enough end for him anyway. He deserves to bleed for what he’s done.”

“I agree.” Her contact turned back to the door and held it open. “We should go inside. This part of the castle is relatively inactive, but Commander Erwin does have a few of the squad leaders conduct nighttime patrols all around the grounds. We don’t want to risk being spotted.”

Tamsin needed no further prompting. She slipped past the cloaked figure, setting foot inside the Survey Corps’ headquarters for the first and hopefully last time. As her contact shut the door behind them, Tamsin felt imbued with a renewed sense of purpose.

“We will kill Levi,” she said as her contact plucked the torch from the sconce they’d set it in before coming outside, “but before we do that, we owe it to your father to carry out his mission.”

“You want to release the shifter?”

Tamsin watched as the flames cast dancing shadows on the floor around them. She smiled coldly. “Not quite,” she said. She retrieved the tiny vial she’d kept tucked in the hidden pocket of her jacket sleeve and held it out for her companion to see. It looked insignificant as it rested in her palm, but only deceptively so; it was far from innocuous.

She slid it carefully back into her pocket. “I think it’s time we showed these soldiers what the Olympian cause is all about.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're nearing the end, folks...
> 
> Just a friendly heads up that the next chapter will most likely be the last. (-_-;) Having said that, wrapping things up succinctly has never been my forte, so...yeah; this "ending" could potentially stretch into two chapters, or a chapter plus an epilogue. We'll see.
> 
> But until then, let me just say thanks!! Hugs to everyone that's stuck with this story (and me) for so long! You guys rock.
> 
> Also, I'd be peaches 'n cream (whatever the hell that means) if you'd drop me a comment. I struggled with this chapter _a lot,_ and because I can no longer look at it without going cross-eyed, some objective feedback would be awesome.


	12. The Olympian Legacy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last ever undergrad project finished!! WOOT WOOT I HAVE A DEGREE BUT ALSO MEH BECAUSE NOW I HAVE TO FIGURE OUT WHAT TO DO WITH IT ← That's the reason I didn't update last month, by the way. I've been a busy bee. I've also been trying to adapt to life as a functioning adult, though the jury's still out on how _that's_ going. 
> 
> Anyway... I guess this is better late than never. And also longer than ever (just like this note). Three cheers for me cramming way too many scenes into one chapter. Hip hip: *crickets*

Mikasa was walking with the unhurried gait of one completely absorbed by her thoughts, her purposeful strides traded for small, shuffling steps, her eyes staring ahead but not really seeing anything in front of her. She was so uncharacteristically tuned out to the happenings around her that the other soldier was almost on her heels by the time she sensed his presence.

At the last second she turned around, her mouth curving down in a frown as Dietrich Finn almost barreled into her. She was surprised to see him; Finn was another squad leader and had duties similar to her own, but their paths rarely crossed. He had transferred into the Corps from the Garrison over a year ago, trading the security of the walls for the blood found beyond them. He was well liked (apparently), but Mikasa didn't know him well enough to share that opinion. His circle of acquaintances shared no one in common with hers, though that was unsurprising considering that Mikasa could count all of her friends on one hand and still have fingers left over.

“Finally,” was all her fellow squad leader said by way of greeting. He scratched at the stubble of his beard as a slightly disgruntled expression settled on his narrow face. “Didn’t you hear me calling you?” He asked.

Mikasa shook her head, staring up at him with a not-so-apologetic expression. He was tall - nearly as tall as Bertholt Hoover - and she had to crane her neck to look him in the eye. “Sorry,” she offered lamely. “I was distracted.”

"Must have been some distraction," he huffed. "Seriously, Ackerman, maybe you should have your ears checked. I was shouting your name so loudly I thought I was going to wake up the entire castle." He sighed. “Sorry. I don't mean to be rude. It’s just that I’ve been looking for you for a while… didn’t really expect you’d be over in the cadets’ wing.”

Mikasa ignored the obvious question posed in his last statement. “Looking for me?” She echoed. “Why?”

“I’m supposed to report to you until further notice. Commander’s orders.” He scratched at his stubble again, looking confused. “Didn’t he tell you that?”

“No, he didn’t.” Mikasa frowned. It was strange that Erwin would have a squad leader report to an equal instead of a superior, but it wasn’t her job to question his decisions, especially not on a day like today. She’d only seen the blond man briefly in the morning when she’d stopped by his office, but even those few seconds in his presence had been enough to convince her that something was wrong. He’d been sitting at his desk, staring at nothing, barely even registering her presence until she’d broken the silence to ask him if everything was okay.

Then he had told her about Serena.

Mikasa looked up at Dietrich, smoothing her frown away. “I’m sure that Commander Erwin meant to tell me, but he is a busy man. It most likely slipped his mind.” She crossed her arms, trying to remember what task Dietrich had been assigned. “You conducted the rounds tonight, if I’m not mistaken?” She asked.

He nodded. “Yup. Not much to report, either, just a bit of noise from the lower east quadrant. I took a walk by but I didn’t see anything. It was probably just animals or something.”

Mikasa stiffened. “What kind of noise?” The lower east quadrant was closest to the dungeons, a fact that set her instincts instantly on alert.

The tall squad leader shrugged. “To be honest, it sounded a little like…well, a little like voices, but I checked it out and nobody was there. Either it was an owl or some other animal, or my overly tired imagination was acting up.”

"Maybe," Mikasa answered, even though it was too much of a coincidence to assuage her doubts.

She needed to make sure for herself.

She thanked the squad leader and dismissed him, and then started for the lower east quadrant, leaving the cadets’ wing – and Eren’s room – behind. Making peace with him could wait; making sure that Annie Leonhardt was still locked securely in her cell could not.

Her footfalls echoed softly behind her as she wound her way down the spiral staircases that led to the dungeons, but no other sound intruded on the silence. The castle was quiet, still, and when Mikasa finally reached the only occupied cell, Annie’s small form was curled up on the cot, facing away from her.

Mikasa stood there, watching her former classmate's chest rise and fall in peaceful slumber. It was the first time she'd seen Annie since that day in Stohess so long ago, and Mikasa felt a familiar itch to take justice into her own hands. It would be easy - so very, very simple - to slip into her cell and end her life. Once quick slice of her knife, one less Titan shifter in the world.  _So easy._ And yet...

_Killing her won't be worth it. Believe me. It will haunt you._

The echo of his words left a heaviness in her chest and a lethargy in her itching fingers.

She watched Annie a second longer and then turned away, deciding that there was no reason to linger in the dungeons. Annie was exactly where she was supposed to be and Mikasa hadn't heard so much as a whisper since she'd parted ways with Finn.

_Maybe he did just imagine the voices after all._

When she reached the upper floors, Mikasa paused, debating which way to go. It was too late to try and talk to Eren now—no doubt he was sprawled facedown on his bed, sound asleep. But returning to her own room didn’t appeal all that much to her, either. She wasn’t sleepy, so chances were good that she would just end up straining her eyes over the paperwork she hadn’t gotten to earlier. The gym was another option, and slightly more appealing than going back to her room. She could go get in a late night workout, beat her unspoken frustrations into yielding leather until her knuckles were aching and her heart was pounding.

But in the end, she decided to go visit Serena.

Mikasa hadn’t been to medical in months, not since Hanji had said that the wounds she’d sustained in Stohess were healing nicely and had cleared her for active duty.

And that suited her just fine. She didn’t like spending time in medical facilities of any kind, but the Corps' sickbay was worse by far than any of the others she'd seen. After even the milder expeditions, medical was always filled wall to wall with soldiers, beds shoved together to accommodate as many maimed and wounded bodies as the space would allow. And after particularly bad expeditions, the place was nigh unbearable. Blood-drenched sheets, soldiers moaning and wailing in pain as shredded limbs were bandaged or amputated, the smell of unwashed bodies and festering wounds and pungent disinfectant that didn't mask the smell of rot... it was a bloody reminder of imperfect progress at best or costly failure at worst.

A few times, Mikasa had been assigned to medical post-expedition. Even after she'd washed the last set of bedsheets and scrubbed the last drop of gore from the floor, the smell of death had clung to her for days. No matter how much she'd bathed or cleaned, she couldn't seem to wash it away. Even now, the memory of it made her shudder.

But tonight there was no smell of death in the infirmary, no sounds of dying soldiers, no blood-soaked linens. There was just one occupied bed at the far end of the room and one visitor perched on the adjacent cot, facing the wall.

Mikasa froze in the doorway, her heart fluttering. She hadn’t spoken to Levi since the previous night, hadn’t even seen him until now, and she wasn't certain how he would react to seeing her. They'd left things badly, after all, mostly because she'd pushed him for an answer he couldn't give her. It had left them at an uncomfortable impasse and Mikasa didn't know how to work around it, didn't even know if they _could_ work around it.

_Maybe I should leave._

The thought came and went while Mikasa stayed rooted in place.

Levi must have sensed her presence. He didn't turn around, but he straightened up and cocked his head slightly as she stood there looking at him.

“Back again, huh?” He scoffed. “Tch. Sometimes I think you lost your ears instead of your arm. Did you not hear me when I told you I’d come get you if anything changed? You don’t need to be here. Go get some fucking sleep.”

Every word he spoke was bleak, harsh, but Mikasa could hear the strain in his voice.

She made her way over to him, the idea of quietly retreating back into the hallway gone. Regardless of where they stood with each other, Levi was hurting; she wasn't about to leave him there to suffer on his own.

“I’m not the Commander,” she said quietly as she reached him.

He stiffened at the sound of her voice, looking up wearily at her as she came to stand at the foot of Serena’s bed, the bags under his eyes looking almost black in the dim lighting.

“Mikasa,” he said, nothing more.

She didn’t respond right away. Instead, she looked away from him, letting her eyes drift over Serena’s still form. Her porcelain skin was so pale it was almost translucent, but Mikasa could still see the beads of feverish sweat that had gathered on her brow and throat. She was shivering slightly, too, her body trembling beneath the multiple layers of blankets on her bed. The only part of her that still seemed imbued with life was her long hair. It was spread out on her pillow like fire, as radiant as the last, brilliant flare of a dying star.

Mikasa hadn’t exactly been friends with Serena, hadn’t even really been well acquainted with her, but she didn’t dislike the woman. And she knew that Levi cared about her.

_She deserves better than to die like this.  
_

But Mikasa had suffered within the confines of her own unforgiving existence long enough to know that people rarely got what they deserved.

Without saying a word, Mikasa sat down beside Levi on the cot. It was low enough to the ground that she could plant her feet firmly on the floor, though she noticed that Levi’s heels didn’t quite reach.

It was a small observation, and yet it made Mikasa realize something. When she’d first joined the Corps, and for many months after that, she’d made a point of commenting on Levi’s height – or lack thereof – and usually in a derogatory fashion.

 _Damn shorty. Peculiar midget. Insufferable chibi._ All popular contenders in her repertoire of insults, muttered under her breath like curses whenever he criticized Eren or the squad, whenever he bestowed her with one of his trademark scowls. His height had been an easy target, and she'd struck at him repeatedly—not that her blows had ever seemed to affect him. Over time, though, she'd stopped trying to get a rise out of him, and now... now she often forgot that he was shorter than her at all.

As the minutes dragged on and it became clear that she wasn't there to antagonize him or demand anything, Levi began to relax somewhat, eventually hunching forward and resting his elbows on his knees. He kept his eyes trained on his clasped hands.

“This is my fault,” he said after many more minutes had passed, voice barely more than a whisper. “All of it.”

He looked utterly crushed, weighed down beneath his own self-blame, and Mikasa’s heart ached for him. “You didn’t do this, Levi. And we’ll find the person responsible.”

But he shook his head. “No, you…you don’t understand.” He looked at her then, and although he kept his face as devoid of emotion as ever, there was pain in his eyes. “She was only here because of me, to save me, and this is what she gets as thanks. Poisoned. By my own fucking tea.” He ran a hand through his hair, the gesture a jerky outlet of guilty aggression. “And I couldn’t find the fucking ipecac syrup quickly enough…she was barely breathing by the time I got to her. If I’d been faster…” A muscle clenched viciously in his jaw. “I don’t know how much of the poison I managed to make her throw up, but it wasn’t enough, apparently. Even Hanji – four-eyed queen of ‘the glass is half full’ – isn’t optimistic,” he muttered, his voice holding the grimace his expression lacked.

“As long as there’s life, there’s hope,” Mikasa said gently, echoing Carla Jaeger’s words from what seemed like a lifetime ago. “Serena is still alive, Levi.”

Levi’s lips twisted. “For now.” He shook his head. When he spoke again, his tone was far away, lost. “When we were six, Serena told me she wanted to be my friend because she thought I had the _potential to be a good one_. She couldn’t have been more wrong.” His clasped hands turned to fists. “All of my friends…every single person I’ve cared about…I’ve lost them all. And every single fucking time, it’s been my fault. My love is a curse.”

Mikasa’s breath caught at the softly spoken avowal, her eyes widening in surprised recognition.

_My love is a curse._

How many times had she thought that very same thing?

How many years had it followed her around like a shadow she couldn’t shake?

_You have the same demons I do, Levi._

Slowly, as if wary of startling him, Mikasa reached over and covered one of his hands with one of hers. His skin was cold, and she could feel the jut of his knuckles against her palm, the unyielding bone his resistance to the comfort she offered.

But Mikasa kept her hand there, a solid, warm reassurance that he didn’t ask for but she implicitly knew that he needed.

“I used to think that too,” she murmured. “That love is a curse. But it isn’t. It’s maybe the only thing in this cruel world that isn’t.” She felt his fist losing some of its edges beneath the shelter of her grip and she squeezed his hand gently. “You proved that to me,” she added quietly.

Levi turned his head to look at her, everything she'd wanted him to say the night before evident in the way his hooded eyes softened as they held hers. Slowly, he unclenched his fist and turned his palm up, threading his fingers through hers and gripping them tightly. It was an unspoken request, but it was as clear to Mikasa as if he’d whispered the words in her ear.

_Stay with me. Please stay._

She knew it wasn't a promise, knew it wasn't some form of reconciliation that would set things right between them, but it didn't matter. She would always lend her strength to someone who needed it, especially if that someone was a person she loved.

So she answered the question he hadn't asked with another gentle squeeze of her hand, pressing their palms together until not even air could pass between them.

 _I’ll stay,_ she was saying. _I’ll be here as long as you need me to be._

It seemed to be enough for him. He turned his gaze back towards Serena's shivering form, and Mikasa did the same, watching over her with him until her own eyes closed and sleep overtook her.

 

**

“Cadet Adler,” Commander Erwin intoned. “I take it you know why you are here.”

 _No, not really._ Raina bit back a groan. _Could you give me a hint, Commander?_ She thought sarcastically. _Because the list of possibilities is endless._

That was the problem with being a troublemaker; she’d broken the rules so many times that it was impossible to tell which of her bad habits had come back to kick her in the ass.

But as she stood there, trying desperately not to fidget, there was one thing she was absolutely sure of: she was in _big_ trouble.

Getting called into any superior's office was enough to send Raina's heart racing like a whipped bronco, but getting called into this particular office was so much worse than any of the others. Raina had been on the receiving end of a good chewing out enough times to know that the highest-ups didn't get involved unless you'd done something really, really bad. And since she'd been told to report to Commander Erwin himself - that he wanted to speak with her personally - Raina knew that she'd crossed the line between mild infraction and deep shit. She just wasn't sure when she'd crossed it.

If someone had given her the choice between staying here or going off to fight Titans with her bare hands, Raina probably would have opted for the Titans. Facing those giant nasties had to be less intimidating than being stared down by these two officers.

Commander Erwin was standing in front of his desk, looking tall, imposing, and downright frightening. His heavy brows were drawn together in displeasure and the blue eyes they framed were piercingly cold. He'd always seemed friendly, the few times Raina had encountered him, but right now the ice in his eyes would've made glaciers seem positively balmy.

To make matters worse, Captain Levi was standing by his side, looking equally grave (though Raina had yet to see him look anything _but_ grave). His arms were crossed casually across his chest, but the nonchalance of his posture didn’t extend to his narrowed eyes. His grey orbs were laced with disgust.

She swallowed thickly and resisted the urge to bite her lip. “I’m in trouble, aren’t I?” She asked quietly.

The Commander’s mouth tightened. “Trouble doesn’t quite cover it, cadet,” he said darkly. “Tell me what happened yesterday morning—I want the whole truth. We already know that you were assigned to kitchen duty this week, so do not try to ply us with denials.”

Her palms started to sweat. _That's what this is about?_ She’d never imagined that she could get into so much trouble for shirking her responsibilities. And Axel had promised that it was fine, that no one would care… She swallowed. “I…yes, I was assigned to kitchen duty,” she admitted, fully expecting to be railed about not showing up.

But both officers just kept staring at her with black expressions, and suddenly Raina wasn’t so sure that skipping out on kitchen duty was the only thing she was in trouble for. Lacking anything better, she mumbled, “I’m sorry. If my actions caused any problems, I will do my best to make up for it.”

 _That_ got a reaction. The Commander’s hand clenched into a tight fist. “You're sorry.” He took a step towards her, the volume of his voice rising with anger. “You will have to be more specific, Miss Adler. Are you sorry that you put poison in my Captain’s tea or that it failed to kill him? Or maybe you’re sorry that a woman is dead because of you.”

Raina spluttered. “W-what?” _Poison? Dead? What the hell is he talking about? Who’s dead?_ “Sir, I- I have no idea—”

“I want the truth!” He barked, looming over her. Raina had never seen so much rage captured in a pair of eyes before. “All of it. And mark my words: if you lie to me, I will have Captain Levi cut your tongue out.”

Raina blanched, flinching away from him. “But I didn’t do anything, Sir!” Her eyes darted to Levi, frantic. “Captain, I’m sorry about what happened the night you got back, but that was an—an honest mistake. I didn’t put anything in your tea!”

The short Captain said nothing, giving her not even the faintest indication as to whether or not he believed her. Realizing that appealing to him would be a dead end, Raina turned back to the Commander. “Sir, I didn’t poison anyone. I don’t even know what you’re talking—”

He grabbed her shoulder, his thumb digging into the thin skin above her collarbone and grinding down on the bone.

Raina whimpered in pain, too frightened to do anything else. “P-please, Commander, you’re h-hurting me…”

His grip only tightened. "Did you think you could hide behind the poison you used? That your cowardice would save you from being discovered?" He pressed his thumb in deeper, almost hooking it beneath the bone. "Did you think I would let you get away with killing her?" His blue eyes were murderous. "You're lucky I only have one arm, cadet," he said, his tone dropping so dangerously low that Raina felt the hairs on her neck rise in fear. "Although I'm sure I can still choke you with one hand. It may take longer, but I don't mind." He dragged her closer via his grip on her collarbone. "So I suggest that you start talking, Miss Adler, before you try my patience."

Raina gaped at him. She couldn't speak, couldn't even breathe. Dimly, from somewhere beyond the fog of dread she was lost in, she heard the Captain moving, a floorboard creaking as he shifted his weight onto it. “Erwin...” he warned, a cautionary edge to his voice.

But the Commander didn’t even blink. “Levi,” he said with exacting evenness, “this girl is responsible for poisoning an innocent woman. I’ll do whatever is necessary to get a confession out of her.”

His words hit Raina with enough impact to return her voice. She gasped, her fear turning to horror. “But Commander, _I didn’t do it!”_ She yelped, tears pricking her eyes. “I didn’t poison anyone! I swear! I wasn’t even…I wasn’t even in the kitchens yesterday!” She was blubbering, hot tears coursing down her cheeks. “Please believe me,” she begged. “My friend, he—he asked me to switch duties with someone so we could go…” Her voice trailed off as she realized what she’d been about to admit. A touch of color crept back into her ashen face, staining her cheeks in mortification. She took a breath. _Come on, Ray, spit it out._ “We were hooking up,” she admitted, staring in shame at the carpet. “I…I was with him the whole time, I swear. I didn’t even go near the kitchens.”

There was a moment of suspension as the Commander stared her down, weighing the veracity of her words, and then he released her with a brusque shove. Raina slumped forward, drawing in a strained gasp as the pressure disappeared from her collarbone. She raised a shaking hand to the abused skin, half expecting to find a hole punctured in her bone where the Commander had pressed his thumb down.

“Please,” she sobbed. Her eyes stayed rooted to the floor. “I know I broke the rules, but I would _never_ kill someone.”

For the first time since she’d gotten there, Captain Levi addressed her. “So you say, but do you have any proof? All you've said is that you were with some boy. Sounds more like convenient bullshit than truth, in my opinion."

Raina gulped. _What the heck ever happened to innocent until proven guilty?_

“His name's Axel,” she said. He might not be proof, but he could tell them that she was innocent…of this particular crime, at least. “Axel Strauss. And I did spend the morning with him, just like I said. You can ask him, Sir. I understand that my word isn’t enough, but he’ll vouch for me.”

“Cadet Adler,” the Commander interrupted. The rage in his eyes was only slightly tempered. “ _Someone_ was in the kitchens yesterday morning. If it wasn’t you, then who was it? If you cannot provide me with a name, I’ll have to assume your guilt.”

“But Axel—”

“—Could very well be complicit in your crime. His word alone will not be enough to clear your name.”

Raina’s mouth opened in shock, but before she could defend herself, someone else spoke first.

“It’s all right, Erwin. She’s telling the truth. She has the love bites on her neck to prove it.”

The interjection of the soft, female voice made Raina look up and caused the Commander and the Captain to turn around. The door to the adjoining room – which had been shut at the time of Raina’s arrival – was now open, and the same redheaded woman Raina had seen galloping in on horseback was standing there, leaning weakly against the door frame. Her willowy figure was swathed in a blue-gray dress that fell to the floor, but even its various (and plentiful) tucks and folds of fabric couldn't hide the way her limbs were shaking beneath the thin material. 

It made Raina frown. For lack of a better word, the woman seemed... _sickly_. Her emerald eyes were as striking as ever, as was the vibrant hue of her long hair, but her porcelain skin had taken on the muted pallor of someone recovering from a heavy fever.

When she caught Raina staring at her, she smiled wanly. “You can relax, cadet. No one will be accusing you of anything else today.”

Raina latched onto the compassion she heard in the woman’s voice. “You don’t think I killed anyone?” She asked hopefully.

The redhead’s smile turned condolatory. “No, I don’t, not least of all because I am the supposed victim.” She sighed. “I am sorry we had to make you believe that someone had been killed; we needed an honest reaction, and those are often best gleaned on the heels of dramatic, unexpected news.” She took a small step into the room, keeping one hand on the wall for support as she did so. “But a crime was still committed, and a would-be murderer is only another attempt away from becoming an actual murderer. You can still help us find the person responsible before that designation changes.”

Raina’s voice was small. “How?”

“By telling us who took your place in the kitchens yesterday.”

Raina froze, feeling immediately uneasy. It was bad enough that _she'd_ been accused of such horrible things, but at least she'd done something wrong. The idea of getting one of her friends into this kind of trouble because they'd been covering for her wasn't a pleasant one. She wasn't a rat, never had been. Even when one of her annoyingly stupid sisters had done something annoyingly stupid and pretty much deserved to get squealed on, she'd always kept her mouth shut.

_But can I keep quiet about this?_

She trusted all of her friends - deeply - and she'd have bet her mother's pearls that none of them would ever be capable of harming anyone. They all had their flaws, sure, but they were good where it counted. And yet, if she had misjudged one of them...

The redhead must have sensed her turmoil. "I understand that you want to protect your friends," she said with almost psychic accuracy, "and that you probably don't think any of them are capable of doing something like this, but believe me when I say that the best way of protecting them is by telling us the truth. Please, Cadet Adler, help us. Give us their name."

Raina licked her lips. "I didn't find someone to trade duties with me, but Axel..." She paused, struggling to actually make herself come out and say it. "Axel asked another one of the cadets in our graduating year."

"The cadet's name?" The Commander pressed.

Raina gave him up. "Milo Barrett," she ratted. "His name's Milo Barrett."

 

**

Most of the time, the Survey Corps castle didn't seem big enough to Levi. There were always people milling about, soldiers chattering and prattling and filling the halls with useless, incessant _noise,_ made worse by the fact that half of those people stared and whispered when he walked by—like he was God's gift or some shit. And it never seemed to matter where he went; even the officers' wing - which should have been less trafficked than the rest of the fucking place - was never as quiet as he would have liked.

Expect, of course, for today. Because Erwin had tasked him with tracking down one particular cadet, the castle had naturally become a fucking tomb. Nobody anywhere. Find the needle in the haystack _without_ the fucking haystack. Or the needle. Fucking ridiculous.

Eventually, he decided that it might be a good idea to enlist someone else's help. Sasha and Connie instantly came to mind, but since it would probably take just as long to find those two clowns as it would to find Barrett, Levi axed the idea. And Eren was a definite no-go, so that left Mikasa.

 _Mikasa..._ Levi's palm twitched at the memory of her hand in his.

She'd stayed with him all night, had even dozed off for a while with her head gently resting on his shoulder. He'd tried to ignore the way she'd curled into him and the way her soft, even exhales had tickled his neck, tried to remind himself that her nearness would never be permanent. But he'd given up, focusing instead on how damn grateful he was that she was there, that despite the fact that he'd refused to give her what she wanted she'd stayed with him anyway.

_I'll never deserve you, Mikasa. And you'd be doing yourself a favor if you just accepted that and moved on. You can do much better. You don't need me._

Problem was, he damn sure needed her.

With a defeated sigh, he turned and headed for the gyms. If memory served, Mikasa would be spending her post-breakfast time there, getting in a short workout.

Levi didn’t know what he was expecting to find when he finally reached the gym, but walking in on Milo Barrett - the cadet he'd been searching for for nearly thirty minutes - holding Mikasa in a chokehold was decidedly _not_ it.

The heavily muscled boy had his right arm wrapped around her neck and his left locked around his right wrist, reinforcing his grip. His muscles bulged as Mikasa struggled to free herself.

_What. The. Fuck._

Rage burned like acid on Levi’s tongue as his split-second shock turned to murderous action. He reached them in a few swift strides and careened into the large cadet, smashing his elbow hard into Milo’s ribs.

The boy gasped and dropped Mikasa, and Levi had a hand on his throat before he could so much as stumble backwards. "Don't you fucking touch her," he hissed, fingers tightening on the boy’s larynx with crushing power. So great was his anger in that moment that if Mikasa had not thrown her arms around his torso and yanked him back, there was no doubt in Levi’s mind that he would have ripped Milo Barrett's throat out.

But Mikasa was strong and he hadn’t been expecting her to intervene.

“Stop! Levi, stop!” She was shouting as she pulled him off of the cadet. “You’re going to kill him!”

Levi broke free of her grip and whirled on her, eyes narrowing to slits. “Give me one good reason not to.”

Mikasa placed herself strategically between the two of them. “Because,” she said, voice unnervingly calm as she glared at him, “he’s done nothing wrong.”

Milo was standing a few paces behind her, coughing, the sound grating on Levi's long-exhausted nerves. He began to edge around Mikasa, aiming to finish what he'd started, but she blocked him, an immovable obstacle.

“ _Listen_ to me,” she snarled.

Levi didn’t understand why she was protecting him. “Mikasa, get the fuck out of my way.”

"No." Her onyx eyes shone with stubborn resolve.

“No? Mikasa, he poisoned Serena, tried to kill me, and he had you in a fucking chokehold a minute ago. How can you—”

She shoved him, hard. “We were _training_ , Levi! We’re in the _gym_. I was _teaching_ him.” She was breathing hard, nearly as angry as he was. “Barrett had me in a chokehold because I was demonstrating how to get out of one. He wasn’t attacking me.” Her brow furrowed. “And what makes you think he had anything to do with poisoning Serena?”

"A confession." Finding out that Milo's attack had been simulated should have lessened his anger at the cadet, but it didn't. “Adler told us that he was in the kitchens yesterday. The timing fits and I don’t believe in coincidences.”

For the first time, Mikasa’s assurance in the boy’s innocence seemed to waver. She turned her head, frowning at Milo in confusion.

But the dark-skinned cadet shook his head. “I was not in the kitchens yesterday,” he said, voice raspy from Levi’s attack. “Axel Strauss did ask me to switch duties with Raina, but I declined.” He looked at Mikasa. “Raina was scheduled in the kitchens during our training session, Ma’am, so I told Axel he'd have to find someone else.”

Mikasa turned back to Levi. “He’s telling the truth, Levi,” she murmured. “I’ve been training with him every morning for the past week. He couldn’t have been the poisoner.”

Milo stepped towards them. “Someone was poisoned yesterday?” He asked. He sounded oddly wary.

Levi glared at him. “You know something about it?”

The cadet looked even more uncomfortable than he had before, but he nodded reluctantly. “Yes, Sir. I think I do.” He looked at Mikasa, turning his mocha eyes away from Levi and the hostility he was projecting. “I know who filled in for Raina yesterday,” he said. “It was the same cadet who was also out after curfew last night.”

“Oh?” Levi cut in. “And how would you know who was wandering around out of bed last night?” He waited, already knowing full well what the answer was going to be.

Milo looked chagrined. “Because I was also out after curfew last night, Sir.”

“What a fucking surprise.” Levi huffed. “I think Erwin must have gone soft while I was gone. No one in your year seems to understand what rules are. Makes me wonder if you even know how to wipe your own asses.”

Mikasa shot him a disparaging look. “Knock it off, Heichou,” she muttered under her breath. Then to Milo: “Which cadet broke curfew last night?”

He pursed his lips unhappily. "Bia Matheson. I didn't want to report her without knowing the situation, so I followed her."

"Were either of you in the lower east quadrant last night?" Mikasa asked.

Milo nodded. "That's where I lost her, Ma'am. I followed her all the way down to the dungeons but I'm not sure where she went after that. I went back to the barracks and confronted her when she got back." His eyebrows scrunched together. "She didn't say much but I think she was lying. And she's not been acting like herself lately. I don't think she would intentionally hurt anyone, but I know that she was in the kitchens yesterday. If you're sure the person on kitchen duty was responsible...I don't see how it can be anyone but Bia."

 _Poison is a woman's weapon of choice, Levi,_ Serena had said that morning when she'd still been half delirious with fever. _Have you scorned any of the female cadets recently?_ _Other than Mikasa, I mean._

He hadn't even bothered replying to that, had just assumed that Serena's wits weren't recovering as quickly as the rest of her.

Maybe he'd been wrong.

He turned towards the door. "Erwin will want to hear this," he told the cadet. "So come along. You can practice choking Squad Leader Ackerman later."

Milo did as he was told but kept his distance, trailing well behind Levi. Mikasa, on the other hand, caught up to him immediately, her face dark shades of red. "That was unnecessary and cruel," she said as she fell into step beside him. "And I'm coming with you; I'm not leaving you alone with Barrett while you're being such a caveman."

"Fine." He glanced over at her, eyes tracing the smooth column of her throat—the pale skin that had been suppressed behind Milo's dark arm. His anger returned with a vengeance. "In the future, Mikasa, you will clear your training methods with me before implementing them with the cadets," he growled.

She didn't say anything, just glared at him with tight-lipped anger for a protracted moment before dropping back to walk with Milo.

Levi stared straight ahead, ignoring her silent fuming and wondering how much worse this shit show of a day could possibly get. 

        

**

Serena slumped against the wall the moment the door closed, her frail strength failing her. Taking a moment to recover from the ordeal – brief though it was – of being on her feet, she rested her head against the comforting surface of the wall and closed her eyes. She breathed in deeply, grateful for the full, unobstructed lungful of air she inhaled.

“Serena.”

Erwin’s voice was low but near, and when she opened her eyes, she found the Commander standing in front of her, worry clouding his blue eyes.

Her lips briefly tilted up. “I’m okay,” she assured him.

He didn’t look convinced. “I think you and I have different definitions of that word,” he murmured.

“Perhaps.” She tried to stand up, only to be submerged by waves of thick dizziness. She grimaced against the nausea and reached for Erwin’s arm, clutching at it as she teetered unsteadily. “I think…I think I should sit down.”

Erwin helped her over to the couch, letting her lean on him as much as she needed to. He kept his arm around her shoulders until she was comfortably seated and then he pulled back, standing in front of her as if unsure what to do next. There was tension in his posture, strain in his expression.

Serena propped herself up until she was sitting with some semblance of poise and then gestured weakly to the other side of the couch. “Until your feet decide where to take you, perhaps you can keep me company, Commander. There’s room for two.”

Erwin gave her a forced smile that didn’t ease any of the strain from his eyes. “I’m surprised that you would want my company,” he said softly, but he sat down as she’d requested, the heaviness of his mood weighing him down into the cushions.

Serena regarded him for a moment, her emerald gaze traveling from the slump of his shoulders up to his downcast eyes and the furrow marring the smoothness of his brow, wondering if this was how he looked after returning from expeditions. Bearing the gravity of defeat entirely by himself.

“Guilt is not a becoming look for you, Commander,” she said gently. “Dignity suits you better.” Her words could almost have been contrived as teasing, had it not been for the serious tone in which she spoke them.

Erwin glanced over at her, his gaze lingering on the weak pulse at her neck, on the ashen hue of her skin. “Just as health suits you better. It seems both of us are out of our element today.” His jaw tightened. “Serena, I…” He began, huskiness coloring his voice.

“If the end of that statement is going to include an apology, please leave it unspoken. You have nothing to be sorry for. As… _unpleasant_ as this experience was for me, it was also a blessing in disguise.” She held up a hand before he could interject. “Please. I know how it sounds, but I also know that I am right. As I told you and Levi earlier, whoever mixed that poison into the tea knew what they were doing. It was a lethal dose, meant to kill the target before help could be administered. If I hadn’t been there, if Levi had been alone…the poison would have killed him long before anyone could have saved him. You would have lost your captain and I would have lost my last remaining childhood friend. Instead, both of us are still alive.”

A profound look of respect had settled into Erwin’s features, mixed with a more subtle emotion Serena couldn’t quite put into words, one that made her lower her own gaze. For the first time since she’d woken up she was grateful for her pallor; no doubt it was preventing the warmth pooling in her stomach from reddening her cheeks.

She lightly cleared her throat. “I must admit that I am surprised at how heavy-handed you were with Cadet Adler,” she said, steering the conversation in a new direction. “I commend you for being convincing, but Levi wasn't the only one worried that you were actually going to hurt her." She remembered the way the tiny blonde's face had scrunched up in discomfort as Erwin dug his fingers into her shoulder. The memory made her frown. "I half believed your threats, too, and I think that the poor girl may now be more scared of you than of the Titans. It was quite an act.”

“It wasn’t an act." 

Serena blinked at him, troubled. "I'm...not sure what you mean. You accused her of killing me, an obvious fallacy given the fact that I am very much alive."

"Alive, yes; unharmed, no." Erwin pressed his hand to his forehead, as if trying to wipe away the frown lines that had sunk into his skin. But the deep furrows were still there when he took his hand away. "I thought she was responsible for poisoning you, for nearly ending your life." He pressed his lips together. "Earlier this morning, when we discussed how to go about questioning the possible suspects, I thought all I wanted was justice. But when Miss Adler began denying everything, my...personal feelings weakened my objectivity. I'll admit that it was not my finest moment as Commander."

His confession made Serena's throat go dry as dust. She’d always had a talent for reading people, so his words shouldn't have been all that surprising given the subtle hints she'd picked up on as of late, and yet to hear him say it out loud...

"I'm sorry," she said. "My intent was not to chastise you for acting as you did. I..." She paused, finding it more difficult than usual to express what she wanted to say. "Your reaction was very human," she finally settled on. "I didn't expect to see you let your guard down because of..." She shifted, acutely aware of how focused his attention was on her. "...because of personal feelings," she finished.

He could have let her purposeful ambiguity stand, but he didn't. Instead, he pushed it into unavoidable clarity. "On most occasions you would be correct in thinking so," he said. "But when it comes to you, Serena, my personal feelings are undeniably human."

Her pulse began to thrum like a hummingbird's wings.  _Tread carefully,_ she reminded herself.  _Do not forget that he_ _is a high-ranking officer in the military._ She licked her lips. “Erwin," she said softly, "there’s something you need to know—”

The door opened, silencing her. She leaned away from him so quickly it was almost embarrassing.

Erwin’s curious gaze rested on her for one brief second and then he was standing, watching as Levi reentered the office, followed closely by Mikasa and a dark-skinned boy Serena didn’t recognize.

It was Mikasa who prompted the cadet to speak, nodding encouragingly when he looked to her for guidance.

He stepped forward, saluting Erwin and inclining his head politely towards Serena. "Sir," he said, addressing the former, "I believe I know which cadet is responsible for this crime. Her name is Bia Matheson," he went on, not waiting for Erwin to ask. "She is a member of the 108th, like me. When I refused to switch duties with Raina, Axel asked Bia. She was the one in the kitchens yesterday morning, and she was also wandering around the castle after curfew last night. I followed her because I was worried she was getting into some kind of trouble. When I caught up to her, she was evasive and dishonest. Bia's usually nothing like that." The cadet's full lips turned down. "I don't know what's going on with her, but I do think something is wrong."

"Bia...?" Serena murmured, testing the rather uncommon name. The others turned at her sudden interjection but Serena ignored them, gears turning in her mind. _Similar to Bea but much more unusual. Veritably unused, in fact. So_ _why is it so familiar?_ She'd heard the name before somewhere, she was certain, read it once in some heavy tome a long, long time ago...

It clicked, and she nearly tumbled off of the couch as her body jolted in shock. "Her name is Bia?" She asked the muscular cadet, urgency in her voice.

He nodded. "Yes, Ma'am. Bia."

"You know her?" Levi asked.

Serena shook her head. "Not her, no. But I know her name." If only she'd heard it a day sooner. "I read a text once when I was a little girl, a book of lost tales and stories from the old world. It discussed ancient deities and the like, including the pantheon of Olympic gods. And no—" she added once she saw the others' shocked expressions, "—that is not a mere coincidence. For reasons unbeknownst to us, our Olympians of today drew inspiration from these old world deities. I believe it had something to do with Titans, some kind of...connection, but I have no concrete evidence to support that supposition." She pursed her lips, trying to recall the most pertinent details. "Most of the Olympians' history - their creation, the people who worshiped them - was either excluded from the book or the pages detailing them were torn out long before I had the chance to read them, but a few of the gods _were_ mentioned by name in the surviving text." She took a deep breath, trying to stave off her returning dizziness. "Zeus, the ruler of these Olympians, was discussed at length. Also mentioned were the select few he tasked to help keep his rule." She paused. "Among them was a deity called Bia."

A hush came over the office as each person processed the implication of that revelation.

Serena was the first to break the silence. There was one last piece of information she needed to confirm her suspicions and she intended to have it. "Cadet," she said, emerald eyes fixed on the dark-skinned boy, "you said that you were in the same year as Bia. When did you graduate?"

"Four months ago, next week."

 _And there is the final piece of the puzzle_. She looked at Erwin. "Four months ago. Shortly after you had Annie Leonhardt moved here."

Obviously she wasn't alone in thinking that that was too much of a coincidence. Erwin's expression was grim as he turned to Levi. "Find her," he said. "Now."

Levi nodded once and headed for the door.

Mikasa watched him leave before turning to Erwin, a question in her eyes.

The Commander sighed. "Yes," he said. "Go with him."

Mikasa was out of the office faster than Serena could blink, leaving her alone with Erwin and the cadet. 

Erwin straightened. "Cadet Barrett, I need your silence on this matter until it is resolved. For now, return to your duties as usual and say nothing of Bia Matheson. Is that clear?"

The young soldier gave him a crisp salute. "Yes, Sir. I'll do as you have asked."

Erwin dismissed him with a curt nod and a brief word of gratitude, maintaining his authoritative stance all the while. But when the cadet disappeared into the hallway, he relaxed slightly, the harsh line of his shoulders easing downward as his commanding mien shifted to a pensive one.

Serena watched him, wondering what he was thinking. She voiced as much. "What do you plan to do?"

He glanced over at her. "With Bia Matheson?" He shook his head in an honest gesture of irresolution. "I don't know. I'll decide when a decision needs to be made, I suppose," he postulated. His uncertainty dissipated as he walked over to his desk. He plucked an assignment roster from where it rested on a stack of papers, eyes scanning through the list of names. "For now, I'm going to reassign a few soldiers to guard detail; they can monitor Annie Leonhardt until Bia Matheson is dealt with," he said as he finished reading. He strode to the door. "Before I do that, I'll check on Leonhardt myself. If Levi and Mikasa return before I do, have them wait here." He was about to say something else but he closed his mouth abruptly, as if only then remembering that she wasn't a member of the Corps he could order around.

Serena saw the embarrassment on his face and it made her smile. "Yes, Sir," she promised, her amusement growing as her answer only seemed to make him more flustered.

"Forgive me, Serena," he said abashedly, "I didn't mean to imply that you are in any way obligated to obey me, nor do I mean to take advantage of the assistance you've freely offered. I spoke without thinking." He cleared his throat. "I'll...be back shortly," he said. He closed the door on his way out.

Serena leaned her head back on the cushions, letting a long exhale escape her mouth as she closed her eyes and ascribing her sudden jollity to nothing more than an aftereffect of her lingering fever.

 

**

“Tamsin, you can’t…you can’t do this,” Bia called as she hastened down the spiral staircase after her companion.

Tamsin didn’t break her stride. “I can and I will,” she said over her shoulder, and the grim certainty in her voice made Bia shudder.

_I have to stop her._

She jogged forward and grabbed Tamsin’s elbow, jerking her to a stop. “Tamsin, listen to me,” she tried again. “This was never part of the plan. We should just kill Levi and get out of here—”

“No.” Tamsin wrenched her arm away and continued walking. “Now is not the time for you to go soft, Bia. You are an Olympian.”

Bia followed after her helplessly, struggling to think of a way to change Tamsin’s mind.

_I should have smashed that vial the moment she showed it to me._

But she had let that opportunity pass her by, and now she and everyone in the Corps was going to pay the price. Her hesitation could cost their lives.

Tamsin didn’t slow, even as she reached the bottom landing of the stairwell and strode ahead down the narrow corridor that led to the stone cells. Bia followed her, shivering at the cold dampness of the place just as she always did when she brought the shifter her meals. There were no windows, and no light or warmth save for the torches burning in sconces bolted to the walls, and those didn’t cast much light or create much warmth. The chill of the floor seeped into Bia’s boots.

Tamsin stopped when she reached the end of the cell block where Annie Leonhardt had been caged up for the past four months. She stood there in silence for a moment, her eyes bright even in the gloom, her chest heaving as though she’d just run a marathon.

It wasn’t from exertion, Bia knew, but from elation. Tamsin had been working towards this goal for months, yearning for this moment, and now it was here.

She was basking in how near at hand her victory was.

Bia felt something, then, a realization that settled into the very deepest recesses of her heart: there was nothing she could say that would dissuade Tamsin from fulfilling her goal. She would sooner die than fail.

But with just as much certainty, Bia knew that she had to try anyway.

As Tamsin reached into her sleeve, Bia stepped in front of Annie Leonhardt’s cell, stretching her arms out like a defensive sentinel. She stood proud and tall and unflinching, donning the strength her father had always taught her to wear like armor.

_Never let anyone see your weakness, my dear. You and I must always be strong._

And she would be, now, when it mattered most. She took a deep breath. “I can’t let you do this, Tamsin.”

The blonde woman paused, taking in Bia’s defensiveness with a deepening frown. “You can’t stop this, Bia,” she said finally. “And you shouldn’t want to. This was your father’s mission. You should be helping me, not hindering me.”

“My father’s mission was to make the entitled people in the cities pay for their bloated lifestyles, not to unleash a shifter within the walls of a military castle. He wouldn’t want this.”

Tamsin scoffed at her. “Are you that naïve? Bia, your father wanted to usher in a new age via blood and sacrifice. He believed that humanity was a lost cause and that _every_ human life should be extinguished, his own included. He would have no qualms with me beginning his purge with these fools in uniforms.”

Bia swallowed. Is that what her father had been preaching behind closed doors while she’d been busy infiltrating the military? Genocide of the human race?

She had always respected her father, had always believed in his vision for starting anew and cleansing the world of corruption and injustice. But if what Tamsin was saying was true…

“I can’t believe that,” she said.

“Believe it. He told me of his plans in no uncertain terms.”

“Then you must have misunderstood. What about you? What about me? I’m his only child.” _Surely you didn’t intend for your own flesh and blood to die, Father._

But Tamsin gave her a look so pitying that Bia knew the answer to her questions without hearing a reply.

It took immense willpower not to break. She leaned back against the cold bars of the cell, letting them support her weight as she tried to cope with the fact that her father had viewed her as expendable.

All her life, she’d looked up to him, loved him more like an idol than a parent, had emulated him in his speech, in his mannerisms, all to feel closer to him, all to make him proud. She’d even started braiding her hair the way he braided his beard, to keep the memory of him alive when he ordered her to leave his side and enter the Training Corps three years earlier.

And yet all that time, he’d been preparing her not for a better life but for death, grooming her to die for a cause he valued much more highly than he valued her own life.

Bia wanted to weep.

_Did you ever even love me, Father?_

Tamsin must have sensed her pain. “We all die, Bia,” she said, almost gently. “But death doesn’t have to be meaningless. Our deaths will pave the way for something better. Your father believed it, and I believe it.”

Bia clenched the bars tightly, feeling more alone than she ever had in her entire life.

_If this is truly what you wanted your legacy to be, Father, then you were not the man I thought you were._

“You’re not alone, Bia. Give me the keys to the cell and we can complete this mission together.”

Bia didn’t move a muscle. She thought of Auggie and of how tongue-tied he got whenever she brushed up against him. She thought of Ray and the effervescent glee she projected whenever she got away with breaking the rules. She thought of Milo and the twins and Sasha and Connie and Eren, thought of all the brave men and women who had joined the Corps because they wanted to save humanity, thought of the one-armed Commander who had saluted them proudly with his left hand and thanked them with admiration in his eyes as he welcomed them into his ranks on the night of their graduation.

And just like that, her decision was made.

“No.” She stood up straight, releasing the bars. “These people are my friends—my family. I can’t let you hurt them.”

Tamsin took a step back, as if recoiling from her words. “Bia… _I’m_ your family. King Salazar was your family. The Olympians are your family. Not these people.”

“Things change.” Bia reached for the dagger in her belt. She wasn’t in the habit of carrying it on her person, but when she’d left her room earlier she’d taken it with her, prompted by some unknown instinct.

But looking at Tamsin now...perhaps it hadn't been such an unknown instinct after all. Perhaps a part of her had known that it would come to this, that it could only ever end this way. Because while things might change, some people never would.

Tamsin saw the knife, her eyes homing in on it as Bia held it out in front of her. Sadness swirled briefly in the older woman’s blue eyes, eclipsed almost instantaneously by her trademark coldness. She shifted into a subtly defensive position. “Think about what you’re doing,” she warned, voice flat.

Bia adjusted the blade in her grip, angling it away from her body and preparing to strike. “I am.”

Tamsin’s lip twitched. “Bia, I’m asking you this one last time: don’t stand in my way. Put the dagger down. Fulfill your destiny—our destiny.”

There was such raw fervor in her words, such conviction, that Bia felt a pitying lump form in her throat. _If only my father hadn’t channeled your passion down such a destructive road, Tamsin. If only. You could have been truly great.  
_

She bit down her compassion, readying herself to do what needed to be done. “I don’t want to hurt you, Tamsin, but you’ve left me no choice. Our destinies no longer coincide.”

She lunged without warning, slicing at Tamsin with the agile precision her father had taught her.

But Tamsin skirted around her attack, twisting away. Bia turned, arcing her blade towards the other woman once more, and again Tamsin sidestepped the blow, this time by ducking beneath the steel as it cut through the air. She sprang up closer than Bia was expecting, and before she had time to retract her arm, Tamsin wrapped one hand around her extended forearm and the other around her upper arm, her fingers digging painfully into her skin. Jerking her backwards, she slammed Bia’s captured arm into the bars of the cell with such awful force that Bia heard something snap. Blinding pain shot up her bones and she screamed, her voice covering the sound of her knife as it clattered to the ground, dropped from her shocked fingers.

Then there was another pain, a duller yet deeper pain, and Bia’s mouth opened convulsively as she sucked in a strained gasp.

She looked down, watching as her blood dyed her shirt a dark crimson, flowing outward from where Tamsin’s own dagger had slipped in between her sixth and seventh ribs. She could actually feel where its point was piercing her, like a sharp fingernail gently scratching at her insides.

It was almost surreal, staring down at the hilt of the dagger, knowing that the rest of it was embedded inside of her. _So quick._ She’d never even seen Tamsin draw her weapon, but then again, Tamsin always had been gifted with incredible speed.

Bia looked up at her, tears slipping down her cheeks.

“Your father would have expected more from you,” the blonde woman said, but there was no condemnation in her words, no trace of ire. She brushed a hand over one of Bia’s braids, almost tenderly. “I’m sorry, Bia,” she murmured. There was true regret in her voice.

Bia could feel the tears dripping onto her shirt, mixing with her blood. _It’s okay, Tamsin,_ she might have said. _You’re just doing what you think is right, just as I was._

Her lips trembled as she parted them to offer forgiveness to the woman she had once called friend, but Tamsin twisted the knife in Bia’s heart and the words died as swiftly as she did.

 

**

Annie stood motionless in her cell as the blonde woman killed the cadet, watching with unblinking eyes as the woman withdrew her bloody knife and the girl’s lifeless body toppled to the floor.

“I’m sorry, Bia,” the woman whispered again, uselessly, as she knelt down and closed the dead girl’s eyes. She choked back a sob, her hands shaking slightly as she sheathed her dagger back in her boot. She stilled for a moment, utterly somber, and then - gently - she rolled Bia onto her side and began turning out her pockets. Her movements were slow and careful, almost as if she were wary of waking the dead girl.

Once she found the keys, however, her momentary grief waned. She stood up with the key ring clutched in her hand and stepped in close to the bars of the cell, turning her attention to Annie.

Annie had remained impassive, unflinching throughout the entire scene she’d witnessed, but when the woman finally looked at her, emotion raging in her eyes like wildfire, Annie found it difficult not to flinch.

The last time she’d experienced true fear, Captain Levi had been hunting her in Stohess’ underground, toying with her like a cat would a mouse. And yet somehow, Annie was even more afraid now than she had been then. Because even while he’d been torturing her, shooting at her, talking to her like she was a monster he wanted to skin alive, Captain Levi’s hatred had been tempered by calm, by sanity.

Annie didn’t see the same underlying sanity in the blonde woman’s eyes. There was rage and passion and purpose but there was no control. Whatever calm she’d had before she’d killed the cadet was gone.

“I’m Tamsin,” she said as she fitted the key into the lock. “And I’m here to free you.” On cue, the lock released with a _click_ and Tamsin pulled the cell door open.

Annie’s gaze flickered reflexively towards the opening but she stayed rooted in place, weighing her chances. The blonde was blocking the exit, showing no sign of stepping out of the way despite what she'd said about being there to free her, and she’d already demonstrated her lethal skill with a knife. Then again, she’d put her dagger in her boot. If Annie moved quickly enough, she might be able to knock her aside and make a run for it before Tamsin was able to arm herself.

Annie sidestepped and the blonde moved with her, caging her. She tried again, earning a repeat performance. Two more attempts yielded similar results, and finally Annie stopped moving, realizing the futility of that course of action. Her lips pulled down in a frown.

Tamsin smiled. “Like I said, I’m here to free you. But I need you to do something for me first.” She pulled a small vial from her sleeve and held it out for Annie to see. The liquid inside was as clear as water, but Annie had no delusions that it was anything so benign.

“Drink this,” Tamsin said, “And you’re free to go.”

For the first time in more than four months, Annie opened her mouth and spoke. “What happens if I drink that?” She asked, voice rough and cracking from disuse.      

Tamsin shrugged. “You’ll shift and be bigger and stronger than you were in your previous Titan forms. It’s a little concoction King Salazar developed, designed to maximize a shifter's abilities. It’s never been tested but I have faith in his brilliance.” She arched a brow. “So what do you think? Take this risk and you’ll not only get your freedom, you’ll get to have your revenge on all these wing-wearing idiots.”

_Freedom._

_Revenge._

They were words that spoke to Annie at a visceral level.

_This is my chance. Why should I say no?_

A pair of wide, green eyes flashed in Annie’s head, and suddenly she was back in Stohess, standing at the mouth of the underground entrance, staring down at Eren as he stared up at her, shouting for her to prove that she wasn’t exactly who she was.

She’d taken her gamble that day and she’d lost, but not before she’d wracked up an even more impressive body count than the massacre she’d dealt the Corps on the 57th Expedition.

And she’d been willing to do as much and more to get away from Captain Levi when he’d been hunting her in the underground.

So why did the price of her freedom suddenly seem too high?

_Even now, I still think of you as my friend._

Annie took a deep breath and looked straight into Tamsin’s turbulent eyes. “No,” she said. “I’m done with killing.”

The blonde woman stared at her for a long moment before finally lifting her shoulders in a slow, dismissive shrug. “Suit yourself,” she said as she tucked the vial back into her sleeve.

Her nonchalance was a ruse.

The first throwing knife ripped into Annie’s shirt, barely missing her skin as it tore through the fabric. She lurched back, just as the second knife twirled towards her. Its blade embedded itself into a soft spot in the wall by Annie’s neck. The third grazed the skin of her left inner thigh as it sailed between her legs.

_Brachial, carotid, femoral._

Each knife had missed her arteries by only a fraction of an inch, aimed with  _almost_ deadly accuracy. Which meant that...

Annie’s eyes widened. Tamsin wasn’t trying to kill her, she realized. The near misses were a distraction from— 

Tamsin knocked her to the ground with the full force of her body, pinning Annie beneath her and pinching her nose closed between her thumb and forefinger. The vial was in her other hand, cap twisted off, and Annie immediately shut her mouth and held her breath.

Tamsin snorted above her. “It’s nice that you’ve decided to grow a conscience, you little bitch, but I’ve come too far to let that stop me.” Her eyes flashed. “Now open your mouth and drink, or I’ll wedge one of my knives between your lips and we’ll try it that way.”

Annie struggled, legs kicking and scrabbling as her hands clawed for the vial, trying to knock it from Tamsin’s grip, but Tamsin was much bigger and heavier than she was and the lack of air was making her dizzy and weakening her efforts.

Annie flailed. She _needed_ to breathe. Her body started to jerk as oxygen deprivation became a real threat, and her heartbeat was suddenly too loud, a drum pounding in her ears, erratic and slowing…

_No. No. Don't. Get the vial. Smash it. Don't breathe._

But her body betrayed her, her physical desire for self-preservation overriding her mental struggle. Annie opened her mouth, sucking in a breath, and Tamsin jammed the vial between her lips before she could close them. She tilted Annie’s head back as the liquid poured into her throat, forcing her to swallow.

Choking, Annie tried to twist her head away, but it was no use. The clear liquid went down as smoothly as if it had been water until every drop was gone. She coughed raggedly as Tamsin let the vial clatter to the floor and stood up.

“Well, you made that more difficult than it needed to be but it’s done.” She backed out of the cell, not bothering to retrieve her knives. “Enjoy the ride, shifter,” she said with a cold smile. And, sparing one more brief glance towards the dead cadet, she turned and ran.

Annie immediately picked herself up off of the floor and stumbled towards the cell door, trying not to panic as she felt the first prickle of fever warm her brow. The door was still open, and she stepped over the threshold, one step further than she’d been able to walk in months.

Her body convulsed. She cried out, clutching at her thighs as she doubled over in pain. Her heart was racing and she could  _feel_ it—scorching waves of heat that started in her stomach and fanned outward, burning her veins as it coursed through her extremities. Her toes and fingers began to twitch, and she could feel the change coming, different from all the times she’d been a willing shifter but unmistakable nonetheless.

_I have to get out of here now._

_NOW._

She ran, blindly stumbling this way and that, winding her way through the dungeons. There was an exit somewhere, she was certain, some way to get out. All she needed to do was find it before she shifted.

She had the determination, but Annie wasn’t familiar with the castle’s layout and every wrong turn brought her dangerously closer and closer to the edge of losing herself. Desperate, she turned one last corner, hoping to find doors, a window, stairs, _anything._ Instead she found a solid stone wall—a dead end.

And then it was too much.

She pounded her human fists against the wall – once, twice – and when she drew her fist back a third time, the world dissolved into blinding white heat.

Screams filled the air as she went up, up, up, as her massive Titan limbs broke through floors and walls and ceilings, as stone crumbled around her like paper. Clouds of rocky debris buried her as she punctured the infrastructure of the castle, showers of dirt and rubble that fell upon her like a heavy stone blanket.

Annie screamed, twisting violently as she tried to extricate herself, hardened fists crashing through more walls as she struggled. She could hear other voices, full of fear and terror, but they were extinguished beneath her own.

And then, amidst the shower of ruin and the racket of screams, Annie’s Titan eyes zeroed in on a bright light shining through the chaos she’d created.

She hurled herself towards it, shaking off the boulders and rocks that threatened to encase her, crashing through more of the castle's support beams and walls, flinging stones and rubble away as she pushed towards the light.

The outer wall gave beneath her weight and suddenly she was free, standing outside in the grass with the midday sun beating down on her Titan form.

_Free._

The humans were still screaming, their voices drifting up to her, wails of pain and horror that she couldn't block out.

_Killer. Murderer. MONSTER._

All so very true. She'd tried to do better this time, to be different, but it seemed that being a villain was simply in her nature; she would never be anything else.

_MONSTER. Murderer. Killer._

Once more, Annie started to run, leaving the destruction and turmoil behind her.

 

**

Eren was in his room when he heard it—the terrible, mangled cry that could only be one thing.

The castle was shaking, but Eren didn’t even notice. He ignored the cadets calling to him as he raced through the halls and down the stairs, didn’t stop until he was outside staring at the Female Titan’s retreating back as she ran towards freedom.

She was getting away. Again.

Eren didn’t hesitate. He bit into his thumb with such force that he almost tore the digit from his hand, blood and flesh filling his mouth as his teeth ripped through his skin.

It was the most vicious transformation he had ever catalyzed, and it had never felt easier.

Eren howled to the sky as he shifted, massive jaws opened wide, and then he was moving, running, feet pounding the earth as he took off like a bullet, mind consumed with one single, infuriating thought.

_Annie._

 

**

There was absolutely no way they were going to get into the storeroom. The entrance was completely cut off, blocked by a solid ton of rocks and debris, and Mikasa knew it would take time and manpower that they didn’t have to move enough of it to get inside.

_Eren is out there. He needs us and we’re stuck here, grounded._

The echo of his Titan scream sounded in her head as she turned to Levi, panic seizing her. “What are we going to do?" She asked. "All of our gear is in there.”

“I know.” Levi stomped his foot in aggravation. “ _Fuck.”_

“Maybe we could go after them without gear—”

“No," he said, shooting the idea down before she'd even finished voicing it. "That’s suicide. You know it, and I know it.”

Maybe it was, but right now that wasn’t enough to deter her. Annie and Eren had fought twice before with drastically different outcomes. There was no way of knowing which of them would survive another fight.

And Mikasa would fight the Female Titan barehanded if it meant saving Eren.

“We have to do _something_ ,” she pressed. “We can’t expect Eren to take her down on his own and we can’t let her get away. Not this time.” She marched towards the pile of debris, prepared to start lifting boulders out of the way.

Levi grabbed her, holding her back with a restraining arm. “Oi,” he said, jerking her away, “we are _not_ going to just start hurling rocks. Look at the way this shit collapsed; you move the wrong one and they’ll all come down on our fucking heads.”

Mikasa was close to tears. “I know that, but what else are we supposed to do?" She gritted her teeth. "We _need_ our gear.”

Levi’s hand tightened, making her glance back at him. There was dirt on his face and blood trickling down from his temple, no doubt from some rock that had come loose when Annie had shifted. His lips were pressed firmly together but his eyes had noticeably widened, as if he'd just realized something extremely important.

“Levi?”

His eyes found hers. “I'd forgotten," he said. "There’s extra gear in my room. Blades and gas too. I stored it there before I left for Stohess. It's surplus stuff, and I know it's not calibrated to your specifications, but it's better than nothing. If we can get to it, we might have a chance.”

Mikasa experienced something very close to hope. “Enough gear for both of us?”

He nodded, and Mikasa felt a wave of relief surge through her tensed muscles. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll go saddle our horses and meet you outside.”

“No.” He was still holding her arm. “I’ll do that. You go to my room. The door should be unlocked. Gear’s in the closet.”

Mikasa frowned. “Why does it matter which of us gets the gear?”

Levi released her with a scowl. “Just do as I say. We don’t have time for this.”

Fighting the urge to roll her eyes, she muttered a quick “fine” and jogged in the direction of the officers’ wing. She had to change route twice because of blockages and debris, but as tedious as it was, she chose safety over expediency. Finally, chest heaving from all the running, she made it to Levi’s room.

That’s when it occurred to her that he’d tasked her with getting the gear because he was worried that she’d go galloping off after Eren without him if she was in charge of saddling the horses.

 _Unbelievable_.

She’d have to remember to give him hell for that later.

The door was unlocked, just as he said it would be, and Mikasa headed straight for the closet, flinging the doors open and scanning for the telltale shape of 3DMG.

“Well, you’re certainly not who I was expecting,” a voice called out from behind her.

Mikasa froze, her gut twisting at being caught unawares. _Stupid._ She'd been so single-minded in locating the gear that she'd never even thought to scan the room, and there was no excuse for such a foolish oversight, not when there was a traitor hiding somewhere in the castle. 

But when she turned around, it wasn't Bia Matheson that Mikasa came face to face with. Instead, a woman she’d never seen before was leaning casually against the far wall, one ankle crossed over the other. There was a long dagger clutched in her right hand, blood smeared across its sharp blade.

The sight of it turned Mikasa’s stomach. “What are you doing here?” She asked flatly.

The woman smiled coldly. “Looking for a little shrimp with a fancy title. He and I have some unfinished business.”

Clarity came instantly. “You’re Tamsin.”

The woman cocked a blonde brow, her smile widening. “So he’s mentioned me, huh? I’m flattered.” She stepped away from the wall, straightening to her full height, and Mikasa could tell from her stance that the woman was well versed in fighting.

Tamsin twirled her dagger. “I’ll make you a deal,” she said. “Tell me where I can find the little fucker and I’ll let you live.”

Mikasa had been slowly edging towards the door, fully intending to run instead of engaging the woman in hand-to-hand combat, but she froze at Tamsin’s request, standing deathly still.

_That's enough._

She was done with these threats, done with these self-righteous Olympians, and more than done with people trying to kill her Captain. Her eyes darkened malevolently. “No," she answered, voice murderously low. "I’ll make _you_ a deal. Lay down your weapon and I’ll let _you_ live.”

Her words cut like knives in the space between them.

Tamsin stared at her for a moment, looking almost surprised, but then she laughed, her blond curls shaking as she tilted her head back. “You’re as arrogant as he is,” she sneered. “But fine. Have it your way.”

She lunged.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **THE END**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>    
> Okay, no, not really. ~~Y'all can put down the pitchforks, I'm not ending it like this. I'm just sitting here trolling my own story because I'm a grade-A asshat.~~
> 
> While I'll admit that I do appreciate a good cliffhanger, this would just be cruel. Besides, I do have an ending already mostly written out—it just didn't fit into this chapter. So, to quote Tamsin: _"one down, one to go..."_
> 
> Told you I was bad at wrapping things up.


	13. Holding Back and Letting Go

Tamsin remembered her first fight. She’d been twelve or thirteen – no longer a child but far from being a woman – lanky, wild looking, and cocky as hell, with balls bigger than half the boys she’d been friends with. Nothing was too daring, nothing was too scary. She was a dragon slayer and everyone else—they were just dragons.

But Randall had been a _big_ dragon even at the age of fourteen, his thick-veined muscles pulsing as though they had fire inside of them. He’d told her to put her fists up that day in the alley, to put her money where her mouth was, and for a second – just a brief, fleeting second – Tamsin had worried that she wouldn’t be able to slay as fearsome-looking a beast as Randall.

Her second of doubt had been unwarranted.

She’d beaten the older boy bloody in less than five minutes, pounding his face into the ground until his nose had crunched in with an ugly _squish_ and he’d held his hands up, screaming at her to _get off, get off, you win, just get off of me!_

Tamsin had obliged him, making sure to give the circle of onlookers gathered around them a proud, threatening smile before she backed away and joined the friends cheering for her with whoops and hollers and stars in their eyes. She’d been a true dragon slayer that day, had vanquished the most daunting foe a scrawny little girl could face and come away unscathed.

This fight was nothing like her fight with Randall.

The dark-haired girl was much less physically intimidating than Randall, but much, much more deadly. Every time Tamsin struck at her she managed to evade the blow and turn her defensive reaction into an offensive counterattack. She was a cat: coiled, clever, and hiding claws. Intimidating strength coupled with uncanny reflexes. Every movement was a projection of power, speed, and confidence in her own abilities.

She irritatingly, _infuriatingly_ , reminded Tamsin of Levi—the way he could react like lightning to anything anyone threw at him, all while looking as unruffled and smug as the cat that got the fucking canary.

It pissed her off. There was no need for more than one of those annoying little fuckers in the world, let alone in the same branch of the military. 

Tamsin attacked again, teeth clenched and blade extended, but this time the girl acted preemptively, stopping Tamsin's attack with a heavy foot to the ribs and sending her reeling back and gasping for air.

And the girl took advantage of her stumble. She aimed a powerful side kick to the same place her foot had struck moments before, but no—there was no way in hell Tamsin was going to let her land that blow. She saw it coming, had anticipated it, and she jerked out of the way. But her opponent adapted, using her failed strike to launch a second, and this time Tamsin _didn't_ see it coming. The girl's heel dug into Tamsin’s solar plexus, smacking her dead center, and she fell back against the closet she hadn't realized she'd been edging towards, dislodging items stored above her head as she collapsed into the shelving with enough force to loosen nails. Clothes and gear crashed down on her head, and it was all Tamsin could do to keep a good grip on her knife as she raised her arms to shield her head from the heavier objects. A cylinder (probably a gas canister for that 3DMG shit, though Tamsin couldn’t be sure) thudded painfully against the back of her neck, making her hiss in pain.

_Enough._

With her free hand, Tamsin reached back and grabbed the canister that had hit her. As soon as she had a secure grip on it, she hurled it forward—right as the dark-haired girl reached her. She was too close to move away or shield herself, and Tamsin felt a glimmer of satisfaction as she saw her pretty eyes widen.

_Gotcha._

The improvisatory bludgeoning weapon hit the girl in the temple, drawing a surprised breath of pain from her lips. She stumbled back, eyes unfocused and glazed as a thick trail of blood began to ooze down the side of her head. It dripped from the ends of her hair and onto her shirt.

Her momentary disorientation was enough time for Tamsin to regain the upper hand. She shrugged off the crap half-piled on her and strode forward, backhanding the girl across the face and following it up with a vicious strike to the gut. The girl doubled over with a grunt, but before Tamsin could plunge the knife into her back, the girl grabbed Tamsin's shins and used her body weight to unbalance her.

Tamsin fell hard, arms wind milling in a useless attempt to break her fall. " _Fuck_ ," she cursed as her body landed heavily on the unforgiving surface. More angry than hurt, she kicked the girl away and rolled to her side, back on her feet in a matter of seconds.

Her opponent was still down but she lurched to her feet when Tamsin came at her, retreating towards the bed. Tamsin moved with her, crowding her, using her superior size to her advantage just as she’d done with the shifter. She pinned the girls’ thighs with her knees, surprised by how much the smaller woman was able to buck and jerk beneath her.

 _Lots of hidden muscle on this one,_ she thought with a trace of admiration, even as the girl clawed at her. Her left hand made contact with Tamsin’s jaw, nails digging deeply into the flesh there and ripping downward, leaving angry red tracks in their wake.

Gritting her teeth against the instant flare of pain, Tamsin flipped the knife in her hand and struck the girl with the hilt, hitting her bleeding temple with enough impact to rattle her skull. Her opponent’s struggles instantly ceased, her eyes fluttering shut as her limbs relaxed beneath Tamsin’s weight.

 _Finally,_ Tamsin thought as she pulled back. She was breathing hard and her skin was smarting painfully from the girls’ nails. _She’s tough; would’ve made a damn fine Olympian._

But it wasn’t meant to be. The only potential she had left was the potential to be a good kill. Tamsin twisted the knife around, pointing the blade once more towards her adversary. _Time to end this,_ she thought, just as the girl’s dark eyes opened and locked onto hers.

Instead of aiming for her heart, Tamsin angled the blade towards the girl’s throat. _In and up and through, nice and easy._

She drove the knife forward.

And her opponent – the bleeding, seemingly helpless and all but defeated girl – snapped her hands around the steel as it arced towards her and _stopped_ the knife, catching it between her palms as swiftly and forcefully as the jaws of a crocodile would snap shut around the limbs of hapless prey.

Tamsin stared in wide-eyed disbelief, right hand still wrapped around the hilt of her weapon, watching as the blood from the girl’s ruined palms ran down her wrists and slithered down her forearms.

_Impossible. How the hell did she…?_

Tamsin never had time to finish the thought.

With a fierce cry, the girl laced her fingers together around the blade and twisted it sharply to the side, wrenching it away from Tamsin and further wounding herself in the process.

Not that it stopped her from attacking. She tossed the knife aside and stood, using her elbows and the heels of her hands to strike at Tamsin’s face and chest and ribs since she could no longer close her hands into fists. Tamsin retreated towards the far wall, trying to land a few blows of her own amidst the girl’s onslaught, but it was useless; there was no break in her attack and she gave no sign of tiring.

And Tamsin’s back was almost against the wall.

_Find a singular weakness and concentrate your blows; even the strongest fighters will break if you find a crack and keep at it._

Tamsin couldn’t remember whose advice that was or why it had popped into her head at that very moment, but she was desperate enough to test its efficacy.

Acting quickly, she ducked beneath one of the girl's violent elbow strikes and maneuvered into her personal space, leaving mere inches between them. It left Tamsin vulnerable, but it also caught her opponent off guard, and before she could step away, Tamsin headbutted her, making sure to aim the brunt of the blow at the girl's temple. 

It worked. Her hard hit bought her a much needed moment of relief as the girl cried out and stumbled back a pace, one of her hands reflexively reaching towards her abused head.

Tamsin swiped an arm across her own face, smearing away the blood dripping freely from her nose as she assessed her opponent. The girl’s hands were shaking badly and the lacerations in her palms were deep _-_ probably deep enough to prevent her from gripping a knife - and the wound at her temple looked aggravated as hell.

_Her attacks may be brutal, but she’s weakening. No doubt about it._

If Tamsin could beat her down, knock her to the floor for just a minute, it would give her enough time to retrieve her knife. And there was no way the girl would be able to stop her blade. Not again. Not with her hands shredded the way there were.

So Tamsin charged her.

And she was once more taken by surprise. Her opponent sent her flying into the wall with a double spinning kick, making full use of her undamaged limbs. Tamsin’s back slammed half into the wall, half into the window, the air pushing out of her lungs with a short, startled _oof_ as the windowpane cracked, and then the glass shattered around her, shards slicing into her skin as she collapsed to the ground.

Head and body reeling, Tamsin spit out a mouthful of blood, the watery red of it glinting amidst the crystalline rubble strewn around her.

“All right, soldier,” she growled. “You want to get nasty?” She looked up, blue eyes flashing with unbridled menace.

The girl’s curtain of dark hair was hanging down, shadowing her face. “No,” she answered, voice as maddeningly calm as ever. “I’m giving you one last chance to surrender. I suggest you take it.”

 _How much of a coward does she think I am?_ Tamsin had _never_ surrendered, was fairly certain she didn’t have it in her. So instead of answering, she pressed her fists into the bits of glass scattered on the floor in front of her, cringing as the sharp fragments cut into her skin. She rolled her knuckles around in the mess like a baker kneading dough, making sure that that tiny bits clung to her bloody skin. _Not quite brass knuckles but hell if they won't work just as well._ She opened her fists and scooped more of the fragments into her hands.

“The only people who surrender,” she said as she stood, pain flaring in her back as she straightened, “are people afraid of losing.”

She chucked both handfuls of glass shards at the girl’s face.

Her opponent ducked instantly, evading most of the sharp projectiles, but Tamsin had only been using those as a diversion. As soon as the girl stood up, Tamsin punched her in the face, glass-encrusted knuckles breaking skin, a smile curling her lips when she heard the girl gasp in agony.

The girl recovered quickly, though, staggering back and flipping nimbly over the bed, putting the large piece of furniture between them. Then, as Tamsin began marching towards her, flexing her other glass-riddled hand, the girl bolted to the closet and squatted down, rummaging in the mess that Tamsin had created earlier.

And she pulled out a long, sharp blade usually reserved for slicing into Titans.

Tamsin paled, cursing her earlier folly. She should have assumed a gas canister wouldn’t be the only piece of 3DMG stored in the closet, should have known that a more deadly piece of equipment might also be within reach.

She swallowed against a sudden sense of panic, wondering how she was going to manage against a blade sharp enough to hack through the thick skin of humanoid monsters, but her nerves eased a little as she saw how much the girl was struggling to grip it. She had to use both hands to hold it, the deep gashes in her palms making it difficult for her to keep it secured in her grasp.

_If she can't even hold it, then how well can she possibly wield it?_

Tamsin’s alarm faded as she watched the girl's clumsy motions, and it dissipated completely as soon as she spied the second blade amidst the clutter.

_How lucky for me that they come in pairs._

Luckier still was that at that moment, Tamsin caught sight of her own knife. It was half buried beneath one of the pillows on the bed, just waiting to be taken up and put to use. 

 _Jackpot._ “Your hands seem a little shaky, soldier,” she commented as she slowly began to edge toward the bed. "Might make it a little hard to use that properly."

Instead of being phased by Tamsin's assumption, the girl's posture took on an eerie kind of calmness. “I might not be at my best, but my hands will still be steady enough to slice you in half,” came her deadpan answer, and Tamsin felt another flicker of admiration for the girl’s moxie.

But admiration wasn’t enough to stop Tamsin from lunging to the side, grabbing her knife, and hurling it with pinpoint accuracy straight towards the girl’s heart.

 

**

A light snow was starting to fall, wet snowflakes blowing down from the heavy clouds that had begun to gather overhead, and the sun that had felt so bright and fierce when Annie had broken free of the castle’s outer walls was now diminishing, casting her in an ever-weakening spotlight as she ran through the desolate countryside. She blinked against the cold flecks that landed in her eyes and ignored the chill wind that ran its icy fingers through her hair and exposed musculature, focusing all her energy on lengthening her strides and putting as much distance as possible between her and her pursuer.

She could hear him – still far in the distance but slowly closing the gap between them – and Annie willed her long-unused limbs to move faster and prayed that Eren would just let her go, just give her up.

But she knew that wouldn’t happen. No doubt he thought the havoc she’d wreaked today had been as intentional as all the other chaos she'd created over the past few years.

_I still think of you as my friend._

But would he—even now?

Only the wind whipping around her face bothered to reply, and in its unflinching susurrations, all Annie could hear was _MONSTER._

She increased her pace, breaking into a flat-out sprint.

Despite the onset of a warmer season, the hilly landscape she was passing through still retained the somberness of winter, tufts of grass merely hinting at breaking through soil, the majority of trees stark and bare and gaunt, the only flowers those of weeds that were nigh indestructible no matter the harshness of the elements.       

But Annie noticed none of those details. She kept her gaze fixed forward instead of down, scouring the open land ahead of her for some way to shake Eren, grateful that the considerable height of her Titan form allowed her a bird's eye view of the area.

It didn't take her long to home in on a viable hiding place.

Maybe a mile to the right, past a wide-open expanse of frozen earth, Annie could make out the edge of a forest. The trees weren’t as tall as those she’d encountered on the 57th Expedition, but they would serve her purposes well enough, help her hide until she was far enough away from Eren to ditch her Titan form. Then, she could find somewhere to take temporary shelter until it was safe to travel. All she needed to do was get there before he caught up to her.

As if to incentivize her, Eren let loose a bellowing howl behind her, its echoes vibrating in the earth beneath her feet.

_He’s getting close._

Annie veered sharply, running blindly for the forest, heedless of everything except the overriding need to outrun Eren.

It wasn’t until she heard the first sharp _crack_ that she realized how serious a mistake she’d made.

Blue eyes going wide, she came to a sliding stop, skating on the slick ground beneath her. She looked down, eyes homing in on the fissure she’d made in the ice, her surprise turning to horror.

It wasn’t frozen earth she was standing on.

It was a frozen lake. And while it may have been frozen through completely during the frigid winter months, it no longer was. The ice was thinning – she could see the water moving beneath the surface the longer she stared down at it – and, judging by the way it had cracked beneath her heel, it was no longer thick enough to hold her weight.

Panic flooded her large body and pulsed in her blood as her fight-or-flight instincts kicked in.

_I have to get out of here. NOW.  
_

Forcing herself to stay calm, she quickly assessed her options. She was much too far from the forest to try and risk continuing on, but as she turned her head, she realized with abject horror that she’d also left the other bank far behind.

Which meant that she was standing more or less in the middle of the lake, caught in a crossroads of fracturing ice and thawing water.

Just as she made the decision to turn back, to trust that the ice she’d already tread on was more trustworthy (she hadn't made any cracks before now, had she?) than the ice she'd yet to test, Eren appeared, cresting the hill and staring down at her with glowing green eyes and the vicious, split-mouth smile she’d come to know better than she wished to.

Unlike her, Eren stopped at the edge of the lake, recognizing it for what it was. His body shook, giant hands clenching into fists as he let out another hideous bellow, the timbre of it sounding awful and guttural - some mangled emotion between rage and frustration.

And so Annie ran forward towards the forest, taking a desperate gamble because she couldn’t, _couldn’t_ go back. She couldn't face Eren's hatred, and she didn't want to fight him. Not again. So she ran from him.

She made it five long strides before the ice broke completely and she plunged into the cold, dark, numbing water beneath it.

 

**

Levi could hear the ominous sounds of a struggle from the hallway – the clash of steel, the grunts of people fighting, the crashing thuds of heavy objects hitting walls, the scrape of furniture shifting – but the sounds paled in comparison to the sight he was greeted with as he barreled into his room.

Tamsin and Mikasa were locked together, each armed with a 3DMG blade, each bleeding profusely. Glass littered the floor, crunching under their feet as they fought, and feathers from a slain pillow were scattered around the room, sticking to the blood on the floors and walls.

Levi gawked in horror. _I sent her here, walked her right into a trap meant for me._

He'd known something was wrong when Mikasa hadn't shown up at the stables, but he'd assumed that she was delayed - or injured, at the worst - because of the castle wreckage. He'd certainly never expected to find her crossing blades with Tamsin _._

Neither of the women seemed to notice his entrance. Both of them were too concentrated on the immediate threat of each other to focus on anything else, so after his millisecond of shock passed, Levi lunged for the items strewn on the floor by the closet, his hands easily finding the other pair of blades in the mess.

He stood up, turning, ready to level the playing field and take off Tamsin’s fucking head—when Tamsin saw him.

“Levi!” She snarled.

He saw Mikasa’s back stiffen in surprise and she began to turn—and Tamsin instantly disarmed her, sending her blade flying away as she stepped in close and threw her off balance.

Mikasa went down hard and Levi sped forward, blades raised and eyes skewering his intended target, but Tamsin’s blade was faster still and she had it to Mikasa’s throat before Levi managed to even make it halfway there.

“Ah-ah-ah,” she said, a smile curling her bloody lips as she forced Mikasa to her knees and yanked her back against her legs. “Not so fast, you little fuck. You take one more step and I’ll slice her throat wide open.” She huffed. “Of course, you probably don’t care about that, do you? What’s one more life, right?”

Mikasa struggled against her then, but Tamsin simply gave her dark hair a tug and exposed her throat more fully to her blade. "Careful now," she hissed. "I'm not used to using blades as sharp as this one. You wiggle too much and I might accidentally decapitate you. Sure would be a pity."

“Let her go, Tamsin," Levi barked, voice dangerously low. "Now. This is between you and me.” He clutched the blades tighter in his hands, trying to keep his emotions from spiraling out of control, desperately aware of how precarious the situation was.

The smile faded from Tamsin’s lips as she stared back at him, her expression shifting to one of budding curiosity. Her gaze slowly dropped to Mikasa before crawling back up to him. “Oh…?” She questioned, one of her brows arching. Her smile returned with a vengeance. “Maybe you _do_ care.”

His heart was in his throat. "She's one of my subordinates, Tamsin. Of course I care. I care about all of the cadets under my command." He tried not to look at Mikasa. If he did, Tamsin would see the truth and that would mean Mikasa’s death. After all, he was responsible for Salazar's death, and Tamsin lived by a code that endorsed the 'an eye for an eye' principle of retaliation; if she gained so much as an inkling of suspicion that he loved Mikasa, she would kill her out of spite. He was sure of it.

“Let her go, Tamsin,” he said again, careful to keep his voice even. “You came here for me, not some random soldier.” He infused his tone with condescending derision. “So unless you’re trying to hide your lack of skills behind a hostage, why don’t you come over here and prove you’re not a complete waste of oxygen?”

Tamsin didn’t take the bait. “I'm fine right here, thank you very much. In fact, we both are. See?” She pressed her blade a little deeper into Mikasa’s throat, breaking skin, and Levi clenched his jaw so hard it was a miracle his teeth didn’t crack.

Tamsin snorted. “Do you think I’m stupid, Levi? I watched you like a hawk for _months._ I can read you like an open book.” She shook the curls that had fallen onto her face aside with a toss of her head. “So don’t try to bullshit me.”

“Fine,” Levi growled. “No more bullshitting. What the fuck do you want?”

“It's simple, really. If you want me to let her go, then put down your blades, waltz your short little ass over here, and stand nice and still while I run you through. You get to die, I get my revenge, and she gets to live. How does that sound?”

“Like a load of shit," he spat back, stalling for time. "How do I know you won’t just kill her the moment I disarm myself?”

“Because unlike you, I’m good for my word,” she replied, voice filled with malicious contempt. “And I have no grudge against _her_ ,” she added, her bitterness subsiding somewhat. “She’s one hell of a fighter. It’d be a waste to kill her for no reason other than your pride.”

Levi feigned interest in what she was saying, still racking his brain for viable ideas. _Just keep her talking. There has to be a way out._ “Not good enough, Tamsin. Let her go first. When she's safe, I’ll do as you’ve asked.”

Tamsin gave an indignant laugh. “You’re kidding—you must be. Why on earth would I trust _you_? You’re the lying, traitorous fuck that ruined my life.” She took a breath, steadying herself. “So no, we’re not doing this your way, Levi. She goes free when you’re dead. That’s the deal. That’s the _only_ deal.” She sneered. “So what’ll it be, _Captain?_ Do we have a deal or don’t we?”

Levi didn’t respond right away, didn’t do anything at all, because he'd come to the stark realization that there was nothing he _could_ do. Tamsin held the ultimate trump card: Mikasa's life was in her hands.

_There's no way that this is going to end well._

He briefly pondered hurling one of the blades he was holding at Tamsin, but despite all the times he'd trash-talked her skills, she was gifted with blades and more than adept at knife throwing. If he tried to take her down, she would see it coming from a mile away, was probably fucking anticipating that he would do just that. Which meant that no matter how quickly his blade sliced towards her, Tamsin's would slice faster...right across Mikasa's throat.

His lips pressed together in anger. Was this really what it had come down to—watch Mikasa die or let Tamsin win? _And I lose either way,_ he thought bitterly.

Still, the choice was easy to make. He met Tamsin’s gaze. “We have a deal.”

“Levi, no.”

Mikasa’s quiet plea broke through the tension in the room and Levi finally looked at her, breath hitching in his throat as he saw the extent of her wounds.

“Don’t do it,” she rasped, voice straining against the blade pressing down on her throat. She was a wreck, her face and clothing littered with glass fragments and blood, a patch of her dark hair clinging to the side of her face in a red, sticky clump, her palms gouged so deeply that Levi swore he could see the white of her bones peeking out from the angry lacerations.

But her eyes were fierce as they held his, no sign of weakness anywhere in their dark depths. They flickered to the floor behind him, then back to his face. “Don’t let her win,” she said, her words resolute. And then she did it again, her gaze pointedly shifting between him and the mess of items strewn on the floor behind him. “Please,” she added. “Levi.” Once more her eyes made the journey, and this time, his own eyes followed, though he was careful not to turn his head too much for fear of Tamsin catching on.

_What are you trying to tell me, Mikasa?_

As if she could hear his unspoken question, Mikasa’s quiet words wrapped around him. “I’d rather see your blade go straight through my heart than watch you die a coward’s death, Heichou. You told me once that we should grapple with defeat, not passively accept it. Please take your own advice.”

Though he kept his face impassive, Levi frowned inwardly. He'd told her nothing of the sort, _ever_ , and God knew he'd never wax poetic like that even if he had. _Don't fucking give up,_ maybe, but phrased like _that_...?

He ran through her words again, mulling them over in his mind.

_Straight through my heart._

_Grapple with defeat_.

And suddenly he knew exactly what she was trying to tell him.

_Straight through._

_Grapple._

His eyes snapped back up, burning into Mikasa’s, conveying his doubt, his fear that her idea wasn’t going to work, that such a risky gamble would only wind up getting her killed.

But Mikasa’s eyes were clear and resolute, and Levi could read the message in them as clearly as if she’d spoken aloud. _Trust me,_ she was saying. _Just trust me._

“Well?” Tamsin pressed.

Levi tore his eyes from Mikasa’s, trading her fiery gaze for Tamsin’s furious one. “All right, Tamsin,” he said flatly. “You have a deal. My life for hers.”

Tamsin smiled, the gesture looking about as innocuous as fangs on a venomous snake. “Well aren’t the both of you just so fucking sweet,” she cooed. “Really. Very touching.” She yanked on a fistful of Mikasa’s hair, tilting her head back. “Listen up, soldier. A deal’s a deal. If you try to help your little spitball of a captain in any way, I will honor your request and send this blade straight through your heart. And unlike my dagger, this time you have no weapon of your own to deflect it with. So no more games. I kill him and then you go free. And if you feel the need to avenge his death and continue our fight where we left off after that, well, I’ll oblige you. Until then, you _stay put._ Got it?”

Mikasa nodded once, lips tight and eyes narrowed to murderous slits. “Understood,” she said.

Tamsin looked back at Levi. “Your blades. On the bed. Now.”

_Now or never._

He spared one more glance at Mikasa, still not convinced that her idea was going to work.

She was looking back at him, not a glimmer of doubt in her burning eyes. _Trust me._

He nodded, giving in, surrendering his need for control because the honest truth was—he did trust her.

“Okay,” he said, addressing Tamsin and hoping that Mikasa knew the word was meant for her.

Instead of walking forward and placing his blades on the bed, Levi tossed them, letting them spiral through the air with a flourish.

And, just as he’d hoped, Tamsin’s attention momentarily flickered to the blades and away from him.

Levi moved like lightning. He took a large step back, knelt down, hands sifting for the other part of the 3DMG. It took him less than five seconds to find it, bring it up, and aim it at Tamsin.

“What are you—” was all she had time to say before he depressed the trigger and fired the grappling hook.

The small metal end ripped into her chest with such blinding velocity and so much force that it burst out through her spine and embedded itself into the wall behind her, dragging her body back with it. Mikasa reeled back and down, avoiding the slice of the blade as it jerked back with Tamsin and rolling out of the way. Tamsin hit the wall with a strangled gasp, her weapon clattering to the ground, a look of utter shock marring her features as her hands scrabbled at the bloody wire protruding from her chest.

But it was no use; the damage was already done. After all, the hooks were designed to find purchase in even the strongest of materials, and human flesh had no hope of withstanding it.

Levi watched her struggle for a moment, grimacing as she yanked and tugged on the wire. He’d aimed for her heart but he’d hit her more in the center of her sternum, the trajectory he’d anticipated somewhat off because he wasn’t used to firing the hooks when they weren’t attached at his hips.

_She’s not going to die easy. It isn’t a clean death._

Levi felt nothing for Tamsin – not pity, and certainly not remorse for killing her – but seeing her skin her hands on the steel wire reminded Levi of a dying animal ready to chew its own limb off in a desperate bid to survive, and he didn’t care for the taste it left in his mouth. He was ruthless, twisted, maybe even heartless, but he wasn’t a sadist. Tamsin needed to die but she didn’t need to suffer.

So he dropped the 3DMG attachment to the ground and retrieved one of the blades from the bed. He walked over to her but stopped in his tracks as he saw Mikasa struggling to lift herself off of the floor.

He hesitated, taking a step towards her, but Mikasa shook her head. “I’m fine,” she mumbled.

That was definitely far from true, but Levi nodded anyway, turning back to Tamsin. He could help Mikasa after he finished the task at hand.

Tamsin watched him approach, blue eyes unreadable, but the way her features were twisted in pain conveyed how badly she was suffering. She did nothing to stop him as he lined up the tip of his blade with her heart, even let her hands fall away from her ruined chest to let him place the blade at a better angle.

He looked at her then, vacantly, not really knowing what to say.

She choked in a ragged breath. “I hate you,” she managed.

“I know.”

“No, you don’t.” Pain of a different nature clouded her features. “You won’t know until someone ruins your life the way you’ve ruined mine.” A tear rolled down her bloody cheek, followed quickly by a second. “I loved Salazar,” she went on, voice thick with emotion, eyes glassy with agonized grief, “more than myself, more than anything. Do you know what it’s like to love someone that much?”

_All too well._

“I hope you do,” she continued in spite of his silence. “I hope you love someone that much, and I hope you live long enough to watch them die bloody. I hope you're standing by, unable to lift a finger to save them. Because then... _then_ you’ll know how I feel.”

An image of Mikasa’s mangled body hanging between the jaws of a Titan flashed in his mind, and Levi shuddered. He took a steadying breath and fixed Tamsin with an icy glare. “Enough. You’ve made your point.”

“Not quite.” She spat in his face, a disgusting mix of blood and saliva that landed on his cheek. He wiped it away with his free hand, unable to hide the overwhelming sense of disgust he felt. “Do that again, Tamsin, and I’ll leave you here like this. I imagine it’ll take you a few long, painful minutes to bleed out.”

Her blue eyes narrowed, but they were as filled with hatred as he’d ever seen them. “Fuck you, Levi,” she choked. “Just—just finish it. Send me home to Salazar.”

He couldn't have asked for a better invitation.

“Done.”

His blade cut through her chest with ease, sliding into her heart. Her blue eyes widened for a moment, and then the coldness in them turned to dust, their fire slowly extinguishing as a final exhale rattled from her bloody lips.

And then it was over. Her head lolled forward and her body sagged against the wall, and it was quiet for a moment, in the room and in his head.

“...Levi?”

The sound of Mikasa’s voice brought him back. He whirled, letting go of the blade as he rushed to her side.

She’d managed to prop herself up on the bed, though it was abundantly clear she wouldn’t be able to move any further.

He touched a hand to her bleeding head, wincing as she shied away from even the gentlest touch. "Ah..." She hissed, teeth clenching in pain.

The sound twisted in his gut. "I'm sorry. Fuck, Mikasa, I'm sorry."  _I almost got you killed. Again._ "I should never have sent you here." He grimaced as he watched blood continue to drip down her face. “I’ll get something for this,” he said, gesturing to the gash in her temple.

But Mikasa was already shaking her head. “No,” she argued. “You need to go after Annie and Eren.”

Levi scowled, brows drawing together in displeasure. “I’m not just going to leave you—“

“Yes, you are.” She inhaled unsteadily. “I’ll be okay.” Her eyes captured his. “But you need to see this through. Please, Levi. Go.”

He wavered, Tamsin’s words already haunting him. Mikasa had lost a lot of blood. What was to say that if he left her here, bleeding and wounded, that she wouldn’t be dead by the time he got back? “Mikasa…” He began.

She gripped weakly at his shirt, clutching at it with the tips of her fingers because her hands were unable to do any more than that. “You trusted me once today,” she murmured. “Trust me again.”

When he said nothing, she let her fingers trail up to his jaw, let them brush over his lips. “Levi.” Her eyes were soft. “I’ll be here when you get back,” she said, as if she knew what he was so afraid of.

His chest felt much, much too tight. “Promise me.”

“I promise. I’m not going to die. Not today.” She let her fingers fall away from his face. “Now _go_ ,” she urged.

He went.

 

**

Eren’s massive form froze as Annie fell through the ice, his scream of rage tapering off as he watched her plunge into the dark water and disappear.

It happened quickly. One second she was there, the next she was gone. The water settled and the world was quiet once more, and the snow continued to fall as if nothing had happened, the flurries drifting softly in the breeze.

Eren waited, standing at the edge of the lake, searching for some sign of her—more cracks in the ice, air bubbles rising to the surface…anything that would prove she was still alive.

But there was nothing.

Except there _was_ something. A solitary thought in his head that was crazy and insane and stupid and reckless and impossible to ignore.

_Save her._

Eren stomped heavily on the ground, the motion rumbling in the earth. He shouldn’t save her—shouldn’t even be entertaining the thought. She was a killer responsible for the deaths of people he cared about. She was an enemy of the Survey Corps and a threat to the human race. She was a cold-hearted girl who had betrayed her own class and all of the people she’d sworn to protect.

And she was as alone in the world as he was, an outcast that didn’t – couldn’t – belong.

_Save her._

He shouldn’t.

But he was going to try anyway.

He stepped onto the ice, keeping his eyes trained on the unreliable surface as he moved cautiously forward.

It probably would have been wiser to shed his Titan form before attempting to walk out onto the lake - there would be less risk of breaking through the ice in his much smaller, lighter, human form - but at the moment, having the considerable length of his Titan strides was more important than his immediate safety. It would take him twice as long to reach the place Annie had fallen in if he used his human legs, and he couldn't spare the extra time. Besides, the ice had held for Annie nearly until the middle of the lake, so Eren figured there was a good chance it would hold for him, too. At least, he hoped so.

One step, two, three… He made it nearly twenty paces when he saw the first hairline fracture, splintering out from a crack Annie’s foot had made. He stepped widely around it and kept moving, relieved that he was in full control of his Titan form.

A year ago, he wouldn’t have been able to control his motor movements for so long, especially not with his emotions so frayed, but time and practice and Hanji’s dogged determination throughout numerous trials and training sessions had proven fruitful; when he shifted, he looked like the Rogue Titan but he was still Eren Jaeger, more human than beast, wearing the skin of a monster without truly being one.

The ice cracked beneath him.

Eren froze, expecting the worst.

But the ice held.

He was close to where Annie had fallen through, and it was that fact that urged him on. She’d been under for nearly two minutes now; if she wasn’t already dead, she soon would be.

Twenty feet away.

Ten.

_Crack._

He felt water on his feet, spilling out from the fissure he'd made in the ice, but the hole Annie had fallen through was close, the water beckoning to him. So he kept moving, ignoring the chill, ignoring his fear.

Five feet away.

_Crack._

He stopped moving, the ominous fracturing sound leeching his confidence. A quick glance down revealed that this crack was worse than the others—bigger and deeper; chances were good that if he took even one more step, he would fall through the ice just as Annie had.

It wasn’t too late to turn back. He could save himself and leave Annie to her fate and no one would blame him. Hell, they’d probably thank him.

But Eren wouldn't be able to live with himself if he did.

_Here goes nothing._

He launched his Titan body forward and dove headfirst into the dark water.

The cold hit him like a thousand knives, stinging his Titan skin as it shocked through him. He fought the urge to roar in pain, keeping his mouth closed to save the breath he’d taken before going under.

He blinked, trying to see, but the water was dark and murky, the light only visible about ten feet down. The blackness of the water enveloped him as he sank.

Then the panic set in. Because in his haste, in his innate impulsiveness, Eren had forgotten a very simple fact.

He had no idea how to swim.

_I’m going to sink._

_I’m going to drown._

_I’m going to die._

There was nothing but the cold all around him and a building pressure in his ears, and as he flailed uselessly, Eren's fears would have been his undoing at that very moment had he not caught a flash of light in the dark, watery world around him.

He blinked, exerting intense effort to focus in on the light (blonde hair?) as he remembered why he’d willingly dived into oblivion.

_Annie!_

She was sprawled below him, stretched out facedown on the bottom of the lake, her form growing larger and larger as his own body sank towards her.

Acting on the same impulsiveness that had gotten him into this predicament (and so many other predicaments before this one), Eren stretched his arms out as he made it to the bottom, his large hands gripping onto her shoulders as his feet sank into mud and silt and rock.

He would never be able to get her Titan body out of the lake, he knew, so he did the only thing he could think of: he leaned down to her neck and opened his mouth - letting the water rush in - and bit into her nape, tearing her small human body out of her Titan form and trapping her – and a mouthful of freezing lake water – in his jaws. Left with no air and no time, Eren dug his heels into the ground and pushed off as hard as he could, using the momentum to propel him upwards, praying that he’d exerted enough force to reach the surface.

He had.

He launched out of the lake in a geysering jet of water and rolled onto the ice, a chorus of cracks surrounding him as he came to a stop.

It was nothing short of a miracle that the ice he landed on didn't break instantly and dump him back into the frigid water, but it was a temporary reprieve; Eren could tell that it wouldn't hold for long. The cracking sounds were increasing by the second, and he could feel the water pushing up through the new fractures, the temperature of it shocking him into action. He pushed onto his feet in a burst of energy and ran, no longer trying to be cautious. He pounded over the ice, eyes fixed on the shore as the ice broke up behind him, and then, finally, _finally,_ his feet touched solid ground.

Crouching down, he opened his mouth, expelling Annie and a torrent of lake water and coughing violently in the process, more water coming up his throat as he hacked.

And he realized he was done for. His body was shuddering from the lack of oxygen and the water seemed to just keep coming up from his lungs, long rivulets of it that had him hunched over on all fours as he choked it out.

_Time to go._

He’d barely made the conscious decision to disengage from his Titan when the entire thing collapsed to the ground and the skin of its nape ripped outward as he pushed.

And Eren sucked in a blissful inhale of fresh air.

It took him a long moment to regain his senses and pull himself from the smoking corpse of his Titan. His human limbs were shaking from the ordeal and his body was covered in a layer of clammy sweat that had already soaked through his clothing, raising goosebumps on his skin as the wet fabric stiffened and chilled as it was exposed to the cold air. He stumbled as his feet hit the ground, his legs like jelly, but he forced himself to move towards Annie’s still form.

She was lying face-up this time, eyes closed and face slightly blue. He knelt down beside her, his unsteady hands reaching out to gently shake her shoulders. “Annie?” He whispered. He had no idea if she was alive, but she didn’t seem to be breathing. “Annie?” He said again, louder this time, frustration beginning to build in his gut.

But his call went unanswered. Annie remained as unresponsive as she’d been in her crystallized tomb.

_She’s gone again._

It was too much. “No!” Eren shouted, pounding his fist against her chest. “Wake up, damn you! You’re not doing this to me again! Do you hear? You can’t!” He brought his fist down again. “Wake up!” He screamed, angry tears pricking his eyes. “ANNIE!” Again, he struck her chest, channeling all of his roiling emotions into the tension of his clenched fist.

And Annie’s blue eyes opened wide, water flying from her mouth as she coughed and sputtered. She rolled to her side, choking up more water, her body heaving as her fingers dug into the mud.

Eren sat back on his haunches, unable to do anything but watch her, shock leeching away his anger.

She coughed and wheezed for what seemed like ages, but finally she stopped, falling quiet. She rolled onto her back again and just breathed, her chest rising and falling and eventually finding a natural rhythm as her inhales and exhales lengthened back to a normal rate.

And then she sat up, blonde hair sticking to her face in messy clumps and tangles, drops of water still falling from her chin, and she spoke to him for the first time in years.

“You saved me.” Her waterlogged gaze pierced him. "Why?"

_Why…_

He’d wondered that same thing many times, had wanted to reach out and claw the answers from her insides, to break through her veneer of coldness and stoicism just so some of it – _any_ of it – would make some fucking sense.

And now she was asking him the same thing, staring at him with those unreadable blue eyes of hers, as calm and unfeeling as ever.

He shook his head as he stood up. “I don’t know.”

She didn’t press him for a better answer than that, just stared back at him in silence. Her gaze shifted to the lake, to the mess of broken ice and water. “I didn’t want this,” she said quietly. “Any of this.”

Her eyebrow twitched and her lips curved faintly down, a small revelation of emotion that Eren didn’t miss. “Then why...?” He asked, mimicking her soft tone.

She looked up at him. “Because I’m not a good person, Eren.”

“You could be.” _You could at least try._

The hint of a wistful smile touched her face, something about it making Eren feel incredibly sad. “We are who we are,” she replied cryptically. She bowed her head. “You should have let me drown.”

Eren started, her words catching him off guard. “Wha—why would you say that?!”

She shrugged, but the motion was too stiff to come across as nonchalant. “I’d rather be dead than be locked away waiting to die. At least then there would be no more blame to endure.”

Her answer startled him. _She_ _thinks I’m going to take her back._

It was the first time the thought had even occurred to him. When he’d left the castle to chase after her, he hadn’t really had much of a game plan, but of all the possible ways their confrontation could have ended, he hadn’t ever imagined it would end with her back in her cell.

Eren stood up, making a decision that he knew would have repercussions somewhere down the line. “I'm not going to take you back to the castle, Annie."

She stiffened. "What _are_ you going to do?" She asked, almost warily.

Eren frowned. He knew what Mikasa would do. He knew what Captain Levi and Commander Erwin would do. He knew what most of the soldiers in the Corps would do.

But Eren wasn't them.

He let out the breath he'd been unconsciously holding. "Nothing," he said. "I'm not going to do anything. You can..." He swallowed. "You can go. I won't stop you."

Annie’s head swiveled up and her lips parted, though she didn't say anything. Slowly, she picked herself up off of the ground, keeping her gaze fixed on him as she found her feet and squared her petite frame to face him. The indifference in her ice blue was all but gone, melting away more quickly than the thawing surface of the lake beside them. “I’m your enemy," she said, her voice inflectionless in a way her eyes were not. "You’re going to let me just…walk away?”

Eren gave her no reply. Instead of answering her, he asked the question that had been burning at him for a long, long time. “Are you really my enemy, Annie?”

She went completely still, closing down on herself, and Eren could tell that she didn’t want to answer him.

But eventually she did. “No,” she said at last, “I’m not. But that doesn’t mean that I’m on your side, Eren.”

Her honesty hurt but he was grateful for it; it gave him a sense of peace he couldn’t have gained any other way. He swallowed. “I know,” he murmured. _I wish you were, though. I really wish you were._ "I understand." He didn't, though. He never had. Maybe he never would.

But he did understand that their moment here was finite. "You need to leave, Annie. Now. Before anyone else from the Corps gets here."

"I'll go." But she didn't, not right away. She looked down at her feet. "Did you mean what you said to me that night in the dungeons?"

Eren didn't need to ask her what she was referring to. He nodded. "I did." _I still mean it._ His voice hardened. "Now get out of here, Annie. And don't come back." _They'll kill you if you do._

She nodded. “I’ll stay away.” Her lips parted, and for a second it looked as though she wanted to say something else, the words hovering between them like so many other things that needed saying but had never been voiced. But then her eyes cleared and all she said, softly, was, “Goodbye, Eren.”

 _Goodbye, Annie,_ he thought, though he didn’t say it back.

Annie didn't wait for a reply. She simply turned and walked away, rounding the lake and heading for the forest in the distance, never sparing even one glance over her shoulder at him.

Eren watched her go, staring after her retreating back as she reached the far end of the lake and disappeared into the trees, staring after the ghost of her even then.

He had no idea how long he’d been standing there when he heard someone calling to him.

“Oi! Jaeger!”

Eren blinked, waking from his semi-stupor as he turned and glanced up as Captain Levi approached on horseback. Eren gave him a weary salute in lieu of verbally greeting him.

Levi reined his horse to a stop, hooded eyes flickering over Eren, the remains of his Titan, and the lake. “What happened?” He asked. “Where is she?”

Eren hesitated to answer him. There was no doubt in his mind that if he told the truth, Captain Levi would go after her, and judging from the look on his face, Eren knew exactly what would happen when he found her. Eren didn’t want to lie (and truth be told, he wasn’t sure he _could_ lie to his Captain), but he couldn't tell Levi exactly what had happened without endangering Annie.

So he looked out over the lake and told what truths he could. “I chased her here from the castle,” he said. “She had a good head start. By the time I got here, she was out on the lake, running across the frozen ice, and it…it broke.” He took a deep breath. “I watched her Titan fall through the ice. It didn’t come back up.”

Levi squinted out over the lake, his jaw set as he surveyed the telltale breakage and the floes of ice now drifting away from the hole Annie had fallen through. He was quiet for so long that Eren feared he didn’t believe him, but when Levi spoke, all he said was, “So it’s over?”

Eren met the intimidating man’s gaze, thinking of all the secrets his Captain and everyone else had kept from him and thinking that maybe it was time he had secrets of his own. He nodded. “It’s over.”

That seemed to satisfy Levi. “Good.” His eyes touched over the smoking vestiges of Eren’s Titan. “Can you manage another shift? There’ll be some heavy lifting to do back at what’s left of the castle.” He scowled. “That bitch made one hell of a mess.”

Eren ignored the malice in the man’s voice and nodded. “I think I’m up to it. I feel okay.”

“All right. I’ll meet you back there.” And with that he spurred his horse towards the castle at a gallop, fast and efficient as always.

Eren spared one more long look across the lake and out to the woods beyond, and then he turned around and headed for the castle, vowing to put his thoughts of Annie Leonhardt behind him.

 

**

The memorial service for the dead was held forty-eight hours after the Female Titan shifted inside the castle walls. Everyone who wasn't confined to medical attended. Dressed in uniform, the soldiers gathered on the eastern grounds, forming a circle around the six freshly dug graves.

Auggie shivered beneath his coat as he looked at the mounds of dirt piled atop the plots, but the chill he felt had little to do with the cold.

Along with Milo, he’d been one of the cadets assigned to help Major Hanji recover the bodies after enough of the debris had been shifted and cleared to permit a search.

He thought he would be up to the task, but when they found the first mangled corpse, Auggie realized he had been grievously mistaken. The soldier’s face had been completely smashed in by a heavy support beam, skin and bones and muscles and teeth all pounded into a pulpy soup that – aside from the sickeningly pink color – had resembled the insides of a rotting pumpkin. Auggie had stood there gaping in horror, unable to quite believe that the bloody ruin he was staring at had once been a human being, until Milo had gently said his name and asked if he was okay. Then he’d bent over and retched violently. Twice.

The Major had reassigned him after that, and Auggie had kept busy by helping to tend to the dozens of soldiers that had been hurt and wounded, spending his time running food from the kitchens to medical and making sure that there were enough bandages and ointments to go around. But whenever Auggie had a moment to himself, he could still see that soldier’s mashed, pulverized face behind his closed eyes.

Her name had been Ava, he’d learned later. A member of the 107th. One of her friends had been able to identify her because of the locket around her neck. Another graduate of the 107th was found a few hours later, along with a squad leader named Finn and an older woman who’d had thirty solo kills to her name.

Auggie didn’t know when the other two bodies had been found. All he knew was that, according to Milo, there hadn’t been much left to bury. The deceased had been in bad enough shape that only their personal effects were being sent home to their families.

Tears stung his eyes. _Is this really what you wanted, Bia? To kill us all?_

At the far side of the circle, Commander Erwin began to say a few words over the graves. Auggie tried to listen, but before long he’d fallen into the mire of his own thoughts, and by the time he tuned back in, the Commander was done and the crowd was thinning.

And then Raina was tugging at his sleeve. She looked up at him, her eyes swollen and red, her usual radiance eclipsed by a somberness born of tragedy.

Auggie wondered if they all wouldn't look like that soon enough, when they went on their first expedition and witnessed the type of horror that the past few days had only hinted at. He wondered if the faces of the dead (and there would be a lot more than six casualties, he knew) would haunt him like Ava's face, if over time his retinas would be scarred with nothing except the images of slain soldiers.

The thought made him shudder. He took a breath, trying to clear his head. "Did the guys send you over?" He asked the tiny blonde.

She bobbed her head. “Yeah. I know you said you didn’t want to have any part in this, but we thought that maybe you'd changed your mind.” There was a small shred of hope in her bleary eyes. “It would mean a lot if you came, Auggie.”

His jaw clenched. “I’m sorry, Ray. I just…can’t.”

She didn’t try to persuade him, just gave him a deflated nod and walked back to where the others were standing. Axel put an arm around her when she reached him and gave Auggie a brief look before turning away. Tomas and Milo did the same.

Bia and the woman named Tamsin had been buried without ceremony in the field behind the stables, in unmarked graves that would be overtaken by weeds and grass in a matter of weeks. The earth would reclaim them and the Corps could forget that they’d ever existed in the first place.

Which had seemed fine with everyone except Raina, who had decided that the 108th should have their own service for Bia, that silence wasn't an option.

_No matter what she did in the end, Bia was our friend. We can be kind to her this one last time, even if she doesn’t deserve it. That’s what friends do._

She’d been crying when she’d said it, and Auggie didn’t know if it had been her words or tears that had moved them, but the others agreed to write remembrance letters and share them around Bia's grave after the official service for the other soldiers had concluded.

Auggie was the only one that refused.

It was only much later, when the sun was setting and his friends had long since retreated inside the castle that Auggie ventured back outside and trudged slowly over to the place where Bia was buried.

Unlike the neat plots that had been painstakingly dug for the other soldiers, the two unmarked graves had been done in haste. They were uneven and clumpy, their outlines not clearly defined; Auggie couldn’t even tell where one ended and the other began.

He stared down at the mess of dirt, feeling the now-familiar taste of bile flooding his mouth.

“Bia,” he croaked, because he didn't know what else to say. “ _Bia.”_

_I can’t forgive you. I can’t._

A sob caught in his throat, and then his composure broke and he hunched over, weeping openly as his body shook with the weight of his grief. He cried until the sky was dark and his tear ducts were exhausted and his heaving sobs turned to raw coughs, and then he stood there, numb and quiet with the night surrounding him, staring down at the ground covering the dead girl he wished he’d never cared about.

Why had he even come? It wasn’t like Bia was going to rise from the dead and explain why she’d betrayed them all. Her answers had died with her.

“I shouldn’t even be here,” he said aloud.

“I agree."

Auggie whirled as he heard the voice, yelping in fright, dread filling him as he realized that _the_ Captain Levi was standing less than a yard away from him. Auggie hadn't heard him approach, but he was there all the same, his piercing eyes boring into Auggie like razors. Auggie gulped so loudly he was sure it was audible. “Captain Levi, I—I’m sorry, I know it's late, but I…I…” He stammered.

“Relax, Reed. You’re not in trouble.”

“I’m not?”

“No. Although you probably should be; your friends woke up half the damn Corps in their piss poor attempt to find you.”

Despite the chill in the air, Auggie felt his ears turn red. “I’m sorry, sir. I lost track of time. I didn’t mean to cause any problems.”

The Captain’s lips compressed in irritation. “Stop apologizing,” he huffed. “I already told you that you’re not in trouble.” His eyes flickered to the graves behind Auggie. He was silent for a long moment.

“You came here because of Bia Matheson?” He finally asked.

"Yes, sir."

A pause. "Were you close to her?"

Auggie nodded. “Yeah.” The word came out choked, and Auggie swallowed against the lump in his throat. “I know what she did, but I'm...it's hard to accept, sir. It doesn’t make sense. Bia wasn’t… _this._ She was loyal and kind and funny and I just don’t understand why…” He trailed off, realizing that he was rambling about Bia to the man she’d tried to murder. He stopped himself from babbling out another knee-jerk apology and took a deep breath. “I’ll head back now, sir,” he said. “I’ll make sure that my friends don’t wake anyone else up.”

But Captain Levi stopped him with a halting command. “Wait.”

Auggie did as he was told, eyes widening slightly as he saw the pained frown on the other man's face.

“Sir?”

“Things are always more complicated than they seem,” the Captain murmured in a low voice. He was turned away from Auggie, gazing out towards the hills far in the distance. “I didn't know it at the time, but the man I sent to his execution a few weeks ago was Bia Matheson’s father.”

Auggie paled. _Her father?_

“He was the leader of a cult of shifter-worshipers," Captain Levi continued in the same reserved, muted tone. “A madman who no doubt brainwashed his daughter with his crackpot ideologies. If I had to guess, I’d say he sent her here to release the Female Titan.” He turned to Auggie, eyes glowing faintly in the moonlight. “But I don’t think she did.” There was a strange look on his face, one that was incredibly hard to define. “Your friend was stabbed to death. I saw the body, and I recognized the handiwork. We’ll never know what happened or what choices led her to meet that end, but I don’t think she released Leonhardt. I think she tried to stop it from happening.”

Auggie had no idea what had prompted the Captain to offer such a crazy theory, or why the man was even talking to him in the first place when by rights he should have been reprimanding him, but Auggie latched onto the modicum of hope in his words like a moth to a flame. "You think that Bia tried to...to save us?" He asked.

The Captain shrugged. "Like I said, we'll never know. All I'm suggesting is that there's a chance that's the case."

Auggie turned back to her grave, looking at it in a new light. He remembered Bia once saying that her greatest wish was to make her father proud, and yet if Captain Levi was right, if she'd tried to prevent the shifter from getting loose... _Maybe you really did care about us after all, more than we ever knew.  
_

His throat worked.  "I..." _I need more time._

It seemed that the Captain's preternatural awareness wasn't limited to the battlefield. "Take a few minutes," he prompted. "Do what you need to do."

Auggie could scarcely believe his ears. Everyone always talked about how scary, how intimidating, how downright _cold_ the notorious captain was, and yet here he was, offering Auggie time to grieve.

"Thank you, sir," he managed, not quite caring that he could hear the tears in his voice.

Captain Levi didn't acknowledge the gratitude. "You're on morning clean-up duty, Reed," he said as he turned away. "Don't be late."

Auggie watched him go and then he retrieved the crumpled letter from his back pocket, the one he'd told Ray he wouldn't write and the one he'd sworn to himself he wouldn't read. He sat down on the ground at the foot of Bia's grave and smoothed out the wrinkled paper as best he could, tilting the tear-smudged words towards the moonlight.

"I wrote this for you," he said quietly, and then he began to read.

 

**

They were almost to the mess hall when Sasha stopped. Connie didn’t notice right away—he kept walking, continuing on with the story he’d been sharing until he paused for dramatic effect and realized she wasn’t standing next to him.

He turned around, giving her a confused look. “Sasha?”

“Go on without me," she said over the sound of her grumbling stomach. "I’ll catch up in a few minutes.”

Connie's quizzical expression inflated to a caricatural extreme. “You’re _intentionally_ going to be late for dinner?”

She rolled her eyes and waved him away. “Yes, dork.” _Just this once._ "So get me a plate of whatever's on the menu - a _big_ plate, if Hans is cooking - and I'll meet you at our usual table. Okay?"

He shrugged but didn’t say anything else, and Sasha turned and headed for the officers’ wing. It took her longer to get there than it usually would have because she had to avoid one of the hallways that still hadn’t been cleared of debris, but Sasha didn’t mind; it gave her a few extra minutes to decide what she was going to say.

Mikasa was in her room when Sasha got there, trying to fold one of her uniform shirts and struggling miserably with it, the heavy bandaging around her hands rendering them mostly immobile. Her jaw was clenched in concentration, and despite the layers of gauze on her head, Sasha could see the frustration building on her face as the laundered piece of fabric kept slipping out of her grasp.

 _She's probably been at that for a_ _while,_ Sasha guessed. Sighing to herself, she rapped on the open door a few times to get the other girl’s attention. “Hey, Mikasa,” she said. “Do you have a minute?”

Mikasa blinked up at her, her cheeks reddening slightly as she realized that Sasha had witnessed her difficulty with the simple task. She placed the clumsily folded shirt onto her bed atop a haphazard pile of other semi-folded clothing. “Sure. I’m not busy.”

Sasha eyed the bin of clothing yet to be folded and then moved forward without a word, reaching down and pulling out a clean pair of pants. “I’ll help,” she stated, knowing that Mikasa would have been too proud to accept her assistance if she’d offered it in the form of a question. “Folding laundry is kind of soothing.”

Mikasa said nothing, just watched her for a moment before joining her. “What did you want to talk to me about?” She asked two shirts later.

_Here we go…_

“I know about you and Levi Heichou,” she blurted out.

Mikasa’s head snapped up. “W-what?” She stammered.

Sasha mentally slapped herself. Why the heck hadn’t she eased into that? Mikasa wasn't Connie, for crying out loud! Head-on might be the best approach with him, but with Mikasa...?

_Nice going, Braus._

Well, since there was no way she could be subtle _now_ , Sasha figured she might as well just carry on as bluntly as she'd started.

“I was down in the dungeons a few nights back,” she explained, “before, you know, all of that stuff happened.” She didn’t even clearly remember why she’d been there…probably goofing around with Connie or something. Not that it mattered; she’d heard what she’d heard. “While I was down there, I heard Eren talking to Annie. Yelling at her, actually.” She paused. “I didn't mean to eavesdrop, but I couldn't leave without walking by Eren and I thought it'd be awkward for me to suddenly pop out while he was being so emotional, so I just stayed put." She was rambling. "Um." She took a breath. "Anyway... he mentioned the two of you, and I sort of suspected it before that, but…”

“But now you know.”

Sasha nodded. “Yeah,” she said, surprised by Mikasa’s frankness. “Now I know.”

Mikasa picked up a threadbare camisole and started folding it, her gaze falling from Sasha’s. “Are you angry with me…for not telling you?” She asked at last.

“What?” Sasha was completely baffled. “No, of course not!” She assured her, waving her hands. “No, and honestly, I just want you to know that I’m happy for you. The two of you…well, you’ve both been through so much.” She gave Mikasa a heartfelt smile. “You both deserve to have some happiness in your lives for a change.”

Mikasa stopped folding. “Thank you, Sasha,” she said. Her dark eyes were full of uncharacteristic gratitude. “That means a lot to me." She paused. "And I’m glad you know.”

Sasha would’ve breathed a sigh of relief at that, but her exhale caught in her throat as she watched Mikasa – strong, resilient Mikasa – sit down on her bed and bow her head in what could only be described as defeat. “I don’t know what to do,” she whispered.

Once again, Sasha moved without asking, perching herself on Mikasa’s bed and crossing her legs under her. “Talk to me,” she prompted gently.

Mikasa turned towards her, hugging her sides loosely with her bandaged hands, the gesture making her appear younger than she was. “Eren’s still angry with me," she said, "and I don’t know if it’s because he found out about us the way he did or because he’s waiting for me to tell him the truth when I don’t even know what the truth is myself.” She crumpled visibly. “Levi and I talk, but we don’t; he comes and checks on me…like he thinks somehow my wounds are going to get worse instead of better,” she mumbled, a glower briefly flitting across her features, “but when I try to actually talk to him, he shuts down. He puts his walls up and I can’t get past them.” She looked away. “I don’t know how to move us forward, or even if we can. We’re not together, but we’re not _not_ together, either, and because I don’t understand it, I have nothing to tell Eren.” A pained frown creased her brow. “I feel like I’m losing both of them, Sasha.”

Sasha didn’t fancy herself to be a wise person, but she wanted to help, especially now that it seemed Mikasa was finally willing to accept it.

“Do you love him? Levi, I mean.” She bit her tongue to keep from adding _Heichou_ after his name. Even though she'd been in his squad for longer than most cadets even lasted in the Corps, it was still strange to refer to him as informally as Mikasa had. To Sasha, he would always seem a little larger than life. He would always be the Captain.

Mikasa hesitated, nodded. “I do.”

Wow. Now _that_ was something you didn't hear everyday.

Sasha exhaled, trying to calm the butterflies fluttering in her stomach and wondering when exactly Mikasa had gone from hating Levi to… Her cheeks tingled at the thought.

“You’re staring, Sasha.”

She was. _Oops._ Flushing with embarrassment, Sasha hid her face in her hands. “Gah—I'm sorry, Mikasa,” she said through her fingers. “I didn't mean to stare. It's just that, well, I _thought_ you felt that way, but it’s a little more real to hear you say it. It took me by surprise, is all.” She scissored her fingers open and peeked between them, expecting to be met with a fusillade of anger.

But to her complete astonishment, Mikasa didn’t seem the least bit bothered by her reaction. “I understand,” she said. "It took me by surprise too, when I realized how I felt." She frowned. “I wouldn't even admit it to myself at first, and even after I did, I didn't admit it to anyone else." Her dark eyes found Sasha's. "You’re the first person I’ve told.”

Sasha dropped her hands into her lap. “I think there are two more people you should probably tell,” she said gently. “I’d start with Eren—I think he’ll probably be easier to talk to?” That’s what she would do, anyway. “You guys are family, Mikasa. You don’t need to have the whole puzzle figured out before you talk to him; just give him the pieces you have.” She pursed her lips, thinking. “As for Levi Heichou…” She trailed off, not sure what exactly she could say. But then something occurred to her. “You know, Mikasa, you two are a lot alike. I was kind of nervous to tell you that I knew,” she admitted, “but you didn’t freak out. Maybe you should just plain old tell him.”

“I tried once, but he…he stopped me from saying it.”

"So he stopped you." Sasha shrugged. “Try again. And this time, remember that you’re Mikasa Ackerman, the most badass soldier in the Survey Corps.” She smiled. “If anyone can make that man listen, it’s you.”

 

**

“So you’re finally done freeloading off of the Survey Corps, huh? Heading back to the city to keep making a not-so-honest living?”

Serena rolled her eyes. _Once an asshole, always an asshole._ She sighed. “Afraid so. I would have requested to share one more kettle of tea with you before I go, but alas, I seem to have lost my liking for the beverage.”

Levi’s expression flattened. “Well aren’t you as charming as ever,” he muttered.

Serena flashed him a demure smile. “Charm is one of my many talents,” she rejoined dryly.  _As is my ability to sour your mood regardless of how sour it already is._ Her smile lost a little of its shine as it occurred to her that she wouldn't be seeing his grumpy face on a daily basis anymore. “I’m really going to miss you, Levi,” she said sincerely.

Levi gave an unintelligible grunt and looked away, and Serena suspected it was probably the closest thing to an “ _I’ll miss you too”_ she was going to get out of him. Which suited her fine; Levi had always been on the reticent end of sharing his feelings.

Which reminded her…

“Have you talked to Mikasa yet?”

Levi gave her an exasperated look. “No. I’ve been a little preoccupied, considering that half of the castle got fucking demolished three days ago. I’ve barely had time to take a piss, let alone sit down and have a heart-to-heart.”

Serena raised her eyebrows. “Your crass excuses don’t fool me, Levi. Whatever you’re so afraid of, let it go. Tell Mikasa that you love her and let all of the other superfluous details work themselves out.”

“And what makes you think that everything else will just work itself out?”

“Call it my remarkably accurate intuition," she replied as she began to tease apart the tangles in her hair and work the mass of red curls into a thick braid. As her fingers moved with facile precision, she looked outside, her gaze drawn to a few soldiers walking by the window. Their shadows were beginning to show on the ground behind them, Serena noticed, and the observation made her frown. The sky was still light, but if she wanted to make it back to Stohess before dusk she would have to leave presently.

She bit her lip. “Do you know where Erwin is right now?” She asked as she finished her braid and reached for the simple ribbon resting on the desk.

If Levi was surprised that she had asked, it didn’t show. “He’s in his office, going through files or whatever it is he does. And he’s expecting you,” he added.

“Oh?" She wrapped the ribbon around her hair, securing her handiwork in a tight double knot. "And why is that?”

“Because I told him you’d be dropping by before you left, idiot. I figured it was only fair that you take some of your own advice.” His teasing tone dissipated. “Also, I knew that you’d need to talk to him after I tell you what I found out this morning.”

Serena frowned, sensing bad news. “What did you find out this morning?”

He folded his arms across his chest. “We’ve been summoned to the capital for an official debriefing. Apparently this Olympian-shifter debacle caught the pigs’ attention and they want answers and explanations. You, Erwin, Mikasa, Eren, and I have all been requested to appear in two weeks’ time before a panel of high-ranking brass.”

Serena felt the blood drain from her face. “Did they ask for me by name?” She breathed, heart in her throat.

Levi shook his head. “No, because they don’t know it. I saw the inquiry myself. Right now, you’re listed as the ‘Unknown Informant’, though if you show up in person…”

Levi didn’t need to finish the thought. Serena knew that if she attended the debriefing, _he_ would most certainly be present, and he would recognize her immediately. And then…

Her mouth went dry. “Levi, what am I going to do?” She asked, her usual self-assurance deserting her. “I can’t…I can’t take that kind of a risk. A few years and a change of hair color has not altered my appearance nearly enough to fool him.”

"I realize that, Serena." Levi took a step towards her. “Talk to Erwin,” he insisted, lowering his voice to barely more than a whisper even though they were the only two people in the room. “You can trust him. If he knows you're in trouble, he’ll help.”

Levi's assurances weren't enough to assuage her doubts. "And if he won't help?" She pressed. "What then?"

"He will." Levi's tone and gaze were both emphatic. "But even if he doesn't, there are still other ways out." His keen eyes searched hers. "Don't forget," he said, "that the two of us have always been good at making you disappear when you need to."

 

**

Erwin was just putting his pen down when Serena knocked on his door.

He gave her a warm smile and gestured for her to come in, though his smile dimmed a little as he realized she was dressed for travel and that she looked nearly as pale as she had the day she’d been poisoned.

“Are you all right?” He asked, his heavy brows drawing together in genuine concern.

Serena shook her head. “Not hardly, no.” Her hands twisted into the fabric of her long coat in what appeared to be a distracting motion to keep from fidgeting. “Levi told me that we’ve all been ordered to appear in the capital,” she stated bluntly.

 _Ah_.

Erwin had expected some kind of a reaction, though the undiluted fear in her green eyes was more dramatic a response than he’d been anticipating. Fortunately, he was fairly certain he could ease her fear. "That's correct. The five of us have been summoned to the capital," he said as he moved around the desk and slowly walked towards her. “In fact, I just filed the necessary paperwork to accept the inquiry." The look of dismay on her face made him hurry on. “And you needn’t worry," he hastened to assure her. "You will not be attending the debriefing.”

Serena blinked up at him, her mouth forming a small _oh_ of surprise. “You kept me listed as an anonymous contact?” She asked, incredulous.

“Yes. I made it clear that your name would not be provided for security reasons. You are a civilian under my protection, Serena, and as such you are in no way obligated to attend a military debriefing if I give you permission to decline. I will say the same in person if anyone brings it up in two weeks.”

He'd expected that assurance to relieve her anxiety, but the tense line of her shoulders didn't relax. If anything, she looked... _uneasy_. She searched his eyes, a divot appearing in her brow. "You know as well as I do that there will be consequences for blatantly disregarding an official command, Erwin. Why would you risk penalization to protect my name?"

His gaze softened. “It was the least I could do, Serena. After everything you’ve done for the Survey Corps and for me, this hardly qualifies as repayment.”

The redhead’s gaze flickered away, making it hard for Erwin to read her expression beneath her lashes. He could see the pulse in her throat, however, the unsteadiness of its beat belying her calm and exposing her wariness. “You knew I couldn't go."

He frowned, completely at a loss. "Pardon?"

"You said you filled out the paperwork before I got here,” she murmured, eyes still averted, “which means that you knew I wouldn’t be able to attend the debriefing without putting myself in danger. Correct?”

He wished he knew what she was thinking. “I wasn’t certain, but I did guess as much, yes."

A protracted moment of silence hovered tensely between them before Serena finally looked at him, and when she did, her expression was exceptionally guarded. “Erwin," she asked, quietly, "how much do you know about my true identity?”

And then it made perfect sense.

_She's afraid that I've figured out who she is._

Truth be told, the matter of Serena's identity had consumed most of his thoughts during what little downtime he’d had in the past few weeks—in the past few _months,_ if he was being entirely honest with himself. And while he didn’t know the whole story, he’d managed to piece together a fairly detailed outline of it.

_I know that you weren’t raised in the underground even though you may have lived there at some point, that your mannerisms, bearing, speech…even the elegant script of your letters are attributes of someone highborn. I know that someone in your family or someone close to you was in the military, that you still have active contacts in high places. I know that you spent time in the most elite circles of the wealthiest people, because they are the only ones who have access to the old world texts you read as a child. I know that Madame Gringla is an alias—probably not your first—and I also know that Levi knows who you really are. I know that your secrets carry enough weight to get you killed._

He could have said any of those things, but he didn’t. Erwin had become acquainted with plenty of people during his tenure as commander and his time in the Corps, the majority of whom had skeletons in their closets that they preferred to keep hidden; he could well understand if Serena felt the same.

"I know that you write with a pronounced downward slant when you have urgent news to share," he said instead, "and that you never sign your letters the same way twice. I know that, in contrast to your hair, you wear neutral colors almost exclusively. I know that you are loyal to your friends, and that without you, it would not have been possible to accomplish all that we have these past few months. I know that you have a lasting tenacity which not even poison can shake." He smiled, a touch of sadness in the gesture. "I also know that you are perhaps the most fascinating woman I have ever met, and that when you go, I will miss our conversations very much.” _Put simply, I will miss you,_ he added to himself. He paused, infusing his voice with gentleness. “Right now, that is all I know and all I need to know. If you want to tell me more someday, that is entirely up to you. But please be assured: no matter what you choose to share or withhold, I will always respect you. And if you ever need my help, know that you have more than earned the right to ask for it.”

As he finished speaking, Erwin realized that Serena was staring at him, tears glistening in her emerald eyes. She blinked them away hastily, not letting even a single one spill below her lashes, and, taking him completely by surprise, she stepped in close and reached up to his face, cupping one of his cheeks in her slender hand.

Her gentle touch affected him deeply; it had been a long time since anyone had touched him in such a tender way, and he had to physically resist the urge to pull her closer, especially when she leaned up on her tiptoes and pressed a delicate, chaste kiss to his other cheek, her soft lips lingering on his skin for an interminable second, her hair tickling his neck as it brushed against him.

He wasn’t ready for her to pull away when she did.

She seemed reluctant as well, her hand gliding down from his cheek to his shirt instead of breaking contact with him altogether. Even though Erwin was certain it was straight, she brushed her fingers over his bolo tie, making some inconsequential adjustment. Her brow creased lightly as she stared at it, as if that small symbol of his rank had reminded her of something crucial, of some unspoken barrier that needed to remain in place, of some line that couldn’t be crossed.

The resignation he could read in her eyes wrapped Erwin in a heavy fog of déjà vu, taking him back to the day he’d ended things with Marie. This time, though, it was as if their roles were reversed: Serena was the one pulling away and he was the one who could do nothing except watch her go.

“I will miss our conversations as well,” she said as she stepped back, and Erwin felt more than heard the goodbye in her words.

And then it was on her lips. “Please take care of yourself, Erwin Smith,” she said, turning away.

“Serena.” He closed his mouth before he could say anything else, surprised at how husky his voice was as he spoke her name. His jaw clenched. “Goodbye.”

She paused, one hand on the door. “There’s no need to speak with such finality, Commander; this is merely an _au revoir_ _._ We shall see each other again, I'm sure.”

Her words pained him. _It is a nice sentiment, Serena,_ he thought, _but one that holds no certitude._

Over the years, Erwin had watched countless soldiers walk out of the very door she was standing in front of now with salutes pressed to their hearts and smiles on their faces—young cadets and seasoned veterans who believed that their intrepid Commander was sending them off to battle monsters and bring hope to humanity.

Instead, Erwin sent most of them off to their deaths. Of those countless soldiers who passed through his door, few returned. Serena wasn’t a soldier, but was the situation really all that different?

He sighed quietly. “I hope that time proves you right,” he said, though the words held little conviction.

Serena responded to the doubt in his voice with calm certainty. “It will,” she avowed. She glanced at him over her shoulder, eyes gleaming with sphinx-like sagacity. “Some things are easier to predict than others. But if you’re finding it difficult to believe me, then believe Madame Gringla.” An enigmatic half-smile curved her lips. “After all, I hear she is a very gifted psychic.”

She was gone before Erwin could think of a reply, sweeping from the room and taking her fire and her secrets with her.

 

**

_Alone._

The word had been with him since he’d woken up, drenched in sweat, in the quiet hours before dawn, and it had stayed with him as he showered off the perspiration of another ugly nightmare and watched a bleak sunrise cut through the clouds on the horizon. It had clung to the back of his throat like a bitter aftertaste as he polished off first one and then two cups of strong black tea, it had whispered to him like the cold caress of a dead lover as he walked the halls and barked orders, and it was still there now, biting at his heels as he trudged tiredly back towards his ransacked quarters.

Levi had been alone almost his entire life, though the nature of his isolation had changed over the years. What had once been an unavoidable consequent of childhood tragedy and impoverished survival had become a way of life, a self-preserving habit that he clung to because it was the only constant he could rely on in an unforgiving world. People died and lovers were ripped away, but loneliness…loneliness remained, loneliness _persisted_ , because while Levi had never been able to control who walked in and out of his life, he was in control of seeing that no one ever got close enough to tear apart what little soul he had left. Alone was a safe, painful comfort, and Levi had thought that he would always prefer its hollow ache to the agony of lost love that came in its stead.

Yes, he’d subscribed wholeheartedly to that belief…until he’d gotten involved with Mikasa Ackerman.

Because after being with her, fighting alongside her, arguing with her, after sharing moments of passion and tenderness and camaraderie and frustration and comfort and understanding, Levi could no longer pretend that he wanted to be alone. His desire for numbing stability had been replaced by his desire to let her in, to give her his heart, and that scared him more than the threat of death he faced each time he ventured beyond the walls ever could.

Because unlike loneliness, he could lose Mikasa. And he would. Believing that love and happiness were things he could grasp at instead of intangible pipe dreams was a bad fucking idea, and it was more than unrealistic to believe that he and Mikasa would both survive and have a life together—it was an impossible illusion. Eventually, she'd leave him like all the rest, and Levi already knew that losing her would destroy him in a permanent way. He wouldn't be able to piece himself back together again, and he doubted whether or not he'd even want to anyway, humanity's reliance on him be damned.

He might be Humanity's Strongest, but he still breathed and bled and fucking _hurt_ like every other human being. He still had his limits.

So in order to survive, in order to keep being the so-called hero the world needed him to be, Levi needed to excise Mikasa from his heart before he reached his breaking point. He had to.

He _had_ to.

Levi knew that, he'd decided on that, and yet in spite of it all he found himself heading to her room instead of his, pulled to her like a tide to a shore. Drawn by gravity.

And, by some surreal stroke of fate, Mikasa opened her door right as he reached it.

Her onyx eyes widened in surprise beneath the heavy bandaging on her head. "Levi," she said, and his heart ached at the sound of his name on her lips the way it always did. She pushed the door open wider. “I was just going to look for you.” She stepped closer to him. “Can we talk?”

“I—”

He was cut off by another stroke of fate, this time in the form of a high-pitched voice.

"Captain Levi!"

He turned, scowling at the unfamiliar, freckle-faced cadet as she jogged towards him. "What?" He snapped.

She blinked, shrinking back from the hostility in his voice, her eyes darting nervously back and forth between him and Mikasa. "Commander Erwin wants to, uh, see you, sir. He's in his office."

Of course.

 _In the end, it always comes down to duty._ Levi sighed. "Tell him I'll be there shortly."

She nodded and scampered away, disappearing around the corner.

“I should go,” he said. _God only knows what Erwin needs me for at this time of night._ He glanced hesitantly back towards Mikasa. “You should get some sleep,” he told her. “We can talk tomorrow.”

“But _will_ we, Levi? You’ve been avoiding me for days.”

“I came here now, didn’t I?” The words came out much harsher than he intended, and then, suddenly, as though a dam had burst inside of him, he was overwhelmingly angry. His fears, his stress, his exhaustion, the fact that Mikasa looked like absolute _hell_ because his incompetence had nearly gotten her killed _again_...it was all too much. He exploded. “Waste of my fucking time, though, wasn’t it? There’s really nothing to talk about. Words won’t change facts.”

Mikasa flinched, her expression crumpling. "Don't say that."

"Why not? _You_ were the one who wanted to talk so damn badly." He knew he was causing her pain – he could see that well enough on her face – but he couldn’t stop. His fears had caused an avalanche and now he was caught up in its inescapable momentum, helpless to do anything but spiral down towards his own self-destruction.

“You might want more from me, Mikasa," he lashed out, "but the simple fact is that _this_ is all there is. I’m damaged goods, more abnormal than any aberrant Titan we've faced, fucked beyond repair. I have _nothing_ to give you. And you're an idiot if you think otherwise.” He was panting, shaking, lost. “All I’ve ever done is cause you pain, and it's all I'll ever do, all I'm fucking capable of. So if you know what’s good for you, Mikasa, you’ll write me off as a bad mistake and never look back. Save yourself some misery and let me enjoy mine. We'll both be better off that way.”

His rant finally stopped, his words fading until all that was left was the sound of his ragged breaths and the feeling of utter emptiness he felt where his heart had been moments ago.

He regretted it all instantly, irrevocably, but it was too late.

Mikasa looked more broken than he’d ever seen her, her onyx eyes swimming with anguish and pity. Her lips trembled. “ _Levi_ …” She choked, her voice cracking in pain over the same syllables she’d uttered so beautifully moments earlier.

She reached for him, and Levi jerked back as if burned, startled.

It didn't make any sense. He’d just torn the both of them apart, and yet here she was, showing him compassion. _Compassion._

It made him want to throttle her, to shake some sense into her stubborn skull. It made him want to crush her to him, to kiss her until neither of them could breathe. It made him want to beg her not to hate him for being a pathetic bastard who was pushing her away now because he was so afraid of losing her later.

But he didn’t do any of those things.

“I...” He stopped. What was he going to say? _'I'm sorry?'_ Those two words didn’t amount to shit. And despite the fact that he wished he hadn't said half those things, all of them were true. And now Mikasa knew them as well as he did. A muscle clenched in his jaw. “I have to go. Erwin’s waiting.”

And, unable to bear her nearness or her pity any longer, Levi turned and walked away, letting loneliness embrace him once more.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, take some deep breaths and fret not: I'll be uploading a short epilogue within a week that will _maybe_ rectify the situation between L  & M. It's already written, just needs some editing!
> 
> Also, I thought about apologizing for the angst (because that is literally the theme of this entire chapter), but I figured that if you guys are still reading this 100k+ words in, you know what you signed up for. I'm not what you'd call a happiness guru.
> 
> Still, I hope you enjoyed the FCiB ride :)


	14. Epilogue: Still Burning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took me a little longer to post this than I was anticipating because my nerves got the better of me. What can I say? Endings slay me.

The ballroom at the Carters' estate in Yalkell was filled to the brim with high society folk, all of them coiffed and perfumed and dressed in clothes that were made of fabrics most commoners had never even seen—silks and satins, fine laces and tulles, rich wools and ornate brocades, all boasting the sheen and rustle of money and status. And the opulence of the people blended well with the sumptuous appearance of the space itself, a grandiose room bedecked with marble pillars, titan-sized paintings and massive chandeliers, and gargantuan windows that offered sweeping views of the well-kept grounds.

It would have been impressive on any day, but tonight it was even more spectacular than usual. The Carters had spared no expense in outfitting the already luxurious room for this special occasion; their aim had been to impress, to regale their guests with all that money and status could afford, and they had succeeded. From the overwhelming selection on the banquet tables down to the expensive china on which it was served, the air of the place was one of magnificence.

And Mikasa couldn’t wait to leave.

In the week following their debriefing in Stohess, many of the details regarding the Olympian Scare (as it was now being referred to) had become public knowledge, and as the tale had circulated, so too had the names of those involved—specifically those of humanity’s two strongest soldiers.

The majority of the population had known their names before (specifically Levi's name), but heroes that protected the helpless from seldom seen monsters were more often viewed as good stories than flesh and blood humans. Now that they had protected the people from a threat _inside_ the walls, however, their reputations had taken on a whole new level of celebrity. Everyone wanted to meet them, to talk to them, to rub noses with the soldiers who had saved their cities from destruction.

Most people weren't given the chance to do so, but when Lukas Carter and his wife had requested the honor of their presence, Commander Erwin had acquiesced them, stating funding as the primary reason. The Corps castle needed extensive renovations and their budget was stretched thin as it was; if they had any hope of completing the repairs, they were going to need wealthy patronage, and the Carters' affluence easily crested the upper echelons of any other potential benefactors.

So Mikasa, along with Levi and the Commander (Eren had been excluded from the guest list on account of his _unstable_ nature) had been graciously invited to attend a dinner party in their honor at the Carters’ Yalkell estate.

Mikasa hadn’t complained at the time, but now, standing in the center of the crowded ballroom, garbed in her formal military attire and feeling more like a sideshow spectacle than a distinguished attendee, she was sorely wishing she had.

The Carters and their guests were like vultures—circling and ogling her like a piece of fresh meat, all but digging their gloved fingers into her carcass as they prodded her with invasive questions that they asked out of idle or ignorant curiosity. A few of the so-called gentlemen had even propositioned her, though when one of the more intoxicated ones had dared to put a hand on her, Commander Erwin had suddenly appeared at her side and diplomatically ushered him to another area of the room.

Levi had been there too, a few paces further away, glaring at the man’s retreating back, the look on his face reminiscent of the one he’d worn in Stohess while beating the man who had attacked her outside of the inn. It was the first time she’d seen him all night, and the last.

The night was growing late but the party showed no signs of drawing to a close, and Mikasa decided that she’d done her duty long enough. She was tired, slightly nauseated by the suffocating perfumes she’d been breathing in for hours, and if she tried to keep the polite smile on her face any longer she feared her lips would crack. She wanted air. She wanted _out_.

Making a tactical retreat, she weaved around a few groups of laughing people and exited via an unassuming side door, calculating that it would be easier to slip out unnoticed there than through the grand double doors at the far end of the ballroom.

The door, to her surprise and relief, opened onto a balcony. It spanned the entire side of the building, wrapping around the far corners and continuing past her line of sight, the full length of it enclosed by a white-washed marble balustrade. And it was blissfully empty.

Mikasa took two long strides forward and leaned her elbows on the polished surface of the wide railing, looking out over the moonlit yard and exhaling a long, tired sigh.

 _Almost done,_ she thought wearily.

In two days' time, she and Levi would be heading back to base to continue preparing for the long delayed but finally impending expedition. Commander Erwin would be going back too, though a day later. The previous morning he'd mentioned some vague need to return to Stohess, a detour that seemed uneconomical given that their business there had been firmly concluded following the debriefing. Granted, Mikasa knew his duties must range far beyond her own; she didn't doubt that the Commander had his reasons for backtracking. She was merely happy that she wouldn't have to be a part of it.

All of a sudden, as she was standing there losing herself to the spiral of her own thoughts, Mikasa sensed something in her periphery.

She straightened up immediately and turned, ready to apologize for being somewhere she hadn’t been invited to go. But the words died in her throat.

Levi was standing against the wall a few feet from the door she'd exited through, ankles crossed, hands in the pockets of his long dress coat, unreadable eyes watching her. He didn't seem nearly as surprised by her presence as she was by his.

They stared at each other in silence for a moment before he pushed away from the wall and joined her by the balustrade. His posture was amiable enough, though he kept his hands in his pockets and a good few feet of space between them. “You lasted a long time in there,” he commented.

The deep, familiar timbre of his voice stirred her in a way she tried to ignore. She'd had a long day, and the last thing she wanted to do was have a breakdown in front of Levi. “I tried to,” she said after a pause. “I know we needed to make a good impression tonight for the sake of the Corps, but I couldn't stay any longer. It was…suffocating.” She couldn’t think of a better word.

And apparently she didn’t need to. He regarded her almost sympathetically, his lips twisting. “I know. I don’t know how Erwin does it.” He gave her a sideways glance. “Though at least _he_ doesn’t usually have people drooling over him. This party must be absolute hell for you.”

She steeled herself against the concern in his voice. “I’m not going to deny that.” She paused, looking back towards the door. “The idea of going back in there…”

“Don’t.” Levi seemed to sense her train of thought. “You owe those people nothing. Erwin can handle the rest of the peacocks on his own.”

She noticed that he also omitted himself from that obligation. “You’re not going back in?”

"No." His face wrinkled in disgust. “Erwin knows how I feel about being paraded around like a fucking show pony for assholes to fawn over. He’s probably surprised that I stayed as long as I did.”

Mikasa frowned. “Why did you?”

His eyes flickered to hers for a brief moment, and there was much more honesty in that passing gaze than there was in the seemingly nonchalant shrug that followed. “Doing my duty, same as you. The Carters are one of the wealthiest families within the walls; we need them to fund the renovations.”

 _Liar._ She bit the inside of her cheek to stem her annoyance. "Of course," she muttered blandly.

There was a lull in their meager conversation, and both of them turned towards the grounds, watching as small animals scurried between the trimmed hedges and perfectly manicured bushes, their darts of movement captured in the moonlight.

"How are you feeling?" Levi asked after a time. He didn't look at her.

Mikasa kept her gaze averted as well.  _Worse._ "Better," she replied listlessly _._ "I feel more of my strength returning everyday." _I feel awful, mostly because of you, mostly because of conversations like this one._

After that terrible night back at the castle, all Mikasa had initially wanted was space and time to mourn the loss of something they'd almost had but never would. But because of the travel arrangements and the debriefing and this torturous visit to the Carters' estate, she'd been denied that small consolation. She and Levi spent nearly every day together, found themselves alone more often than not with nothing but time, and _that_ was the biggest irony of all. They finally had time to work things out, to make plans, to just be with each other, and instead they shared nothing but silence and useless smalltalk.

Levi was trying to make it easier for her, she knew, trying to refashion their relationship into a cordial, superior-subordinate one. But the problem was, they couldn't go back, couldn't regress to a simpler time. Too much had happened between them.

And, more importantly and much more frustratingly, neither of their feelings had changed. Mikasa still loved him. Her heart still fluttered whenever he was around, and even though their vapid interactions and hollow exchanges made her want to scream, she still craved them because at least she was able to hear his voice. And she wasn't the only one; she'd caught Levi looking at her more than once when he thought she wasn't paying attention, had seen that old fire in his eyes along with a deep-seated pain she understood because it mirrored her own.

Loss for what they didn't have, for what he'd decided that they _couldn't_ have.

They were a tragedy of their own making.

Mikasa pressed her lips together in irritation—probably the thousandth time she'd done so in the past few days alone.  _I should confront him,_ she thought. _I should_ _make him listen._

But he spoke before she mustered up the courage to speak her mind.

"I'll leave you to enjoy the fresh air," he said, turning away.

She started. "You're leaving?"

He paused. "It's late. These idiots might want to squawk and drink until dawn, but I don't. Unlike them, we'll have shit to do in the morning." He exhaled heavily, the indifference of his gaze cracking slightly as he glanced her way. "Goodnight, Mikasa," he murmured.

She watched him walk away, her hands balling into fists as he left her standing alone in a replay of the night she wished she could forget.

 _Levi,_ she lamented as he disappeared around the far side of the balcony. _You all but broke my heart and it still belongs to you. How can you not see that?_

Seething with frustration, she leaned heavily against the balcony, wishing - not for the first time - that she could just be angry with him, that she could just blame him for all of the pain and sadness, that she could just move on like he'd so callously told her to.

But she couldn't.

_Mikasa, if you love him as much as it sounds like you do, you should at least try._

Eren's quietly spoken words returned to her as she stood there on the terrace, as did Sasha's, blotting out the chatter and laughter still faintly audible from the party inside. The two of them had given her more or less the same advice with regards to Levi:  _try._ It was ironic, in a way; she'd been hiding the truth from them, worried that they wouldn't approve - and, in Eren's case, wouldn't understand - but in the end, the two of them had given her nothing but kindness and support.

_Try._

She thought of the stolen glances Levi cast her way, of the feelings that were anything but null, anything but dormant. In spite of all the things he'd said, there was still something between them. Mikasa was sure of it.

_Try._

Maybe it was time she took their advice.

 

**

When she got to Levi’s room she didn’t knock, just pushed open the door and let herself in, her eyes drifting over the pile of used cleaning supplies stacked in the corner before turning to Levi. He was sitting on the bed, bent over and tugging off his boots, his dress coat folded next to him, the top few buttons of his starched shirt undone.

Mikasa strode forward, and although he’d seemed strangely unaware of her rather bombastic entrance, the sound of her stomping feet _did_ get his attention. He dropped the second boot to the floor and looked up, his lidded eyes going wide.

“Mikasa…?” He asked, clearly confused. He made to stand up, but Mikasa gave a vigorous shake of her head and he sank back down.

She stopped a mere arm's length in front of him and crossed her arms. “I’m going to talk and you’re going to listen.”

His surprise morphed into wariness. “Mikasa—”

“No. Don’t interrupt me.” _You owe me that much._ “You had your turn three weeks ago. Now I want mine.”

He fell silent as the grave, appropriately cowed.

Mikasa waited for a heartbeat to see if he would say anything, _do_ anything, but it seemed that she’d effectively reversed the chain of command. She’d requested his silence and he’d given it.

Praying that the adrenaline that had spurred her actions thus far would carry her through the next few minutes, she took a deep breath and launched into the speech she’d been mulling over for days.

“The things you said outside my door that night hurt me, Levi, more than anything you’ve ever done. You rejected me – _us_ – without even giving me a say, without even trying. You think that Annie and Julius and Tamsin caused me pain?" She tried valiantly to quell the tremor in her voice, failed. " _Nothing_ they did compares to how badly you hurt me.”

Levi looked as though she'd struck him, shocked guilt flaring on his features with violent intensity, and the way he visibly crumpled before her was almost enough to make her fall silent.

But she didn't, because no matter how deeply her words wounded him now, he needed to hear what she had to say. Skirting around things had never worked for them. They were soldiers trained to attack with lethal precision, and Mikasa was starting to think that maybe the only way to reach Levi was to do the same: go in hard and fast and hit the most vital places she could. Do with words what they were both so gifted at doing with steel.

So she continued. “You hurt me, Levi," she said, "but I think you hurt yourself even more. Do you think that you’re the only one who feels that way? That you’re the only one who is broken and damaged and scared?” She took a calming breath. “You’re not. You and I… we are exactly the same. We’ve both lost so much that we feel cursed, and we both use our physical strength to hide our weaknesses, to hide our fears. We would both rather break our own hearts than watch them be shattered by someone else.” A rogue tear tracked down her cheek and she wiped it away with the back of her palm. “But I’m done with that. I’m not going to let my fears hold me back anymore, and I’m not going to let _your_ fears keep us from trying to find happiness.” She took one step closer to him. “So _hear me,_ Levi,” she ordered him, she beseeched him.

She was thankful that he didn’t say anything, because in that moment her courage was very much reliant on her own momentum.

She let her arms fall to her sides in a gesture of openness, of surrender. “I’m not asking you to define what we have,” she said softly, gently. “I’m not going to give you an ultimatum or force you to give me an answer just because I want to hear it. I’m not going to ask you for promises that neither of us can keep. I know we live in a cruel world and I know that any plans we try to make today could just fall apart tomorrow. So I’m not going to ask you for anything. In return, all I want you to do is not pull away. Instead of fighting your heart, fight your fears.” She could feel her own heart thudding heavily in her chest, the gravity of the moment so heavy it was nearly a physical entity. She was well aware that there was no going back as she asked: “Will you do that, Levi?” _Will you at least try, for me?_

He looked up at her, a helpless kind of awe displacing the wariness of his stiff body. And then, after a seemingly endless suspension, he reached out and gingerly gripped one of her hands, and it was all Mikasa could do not to break down in front of him. Because in that simple, tender gesture, he gave her his answer.

“Yes, Mikasa,” he said a moment later, gaze lifting to hers in surrender. “For you, I will.”

A soft, involuntary sob caught in her throat, an insuppressible outburst of hope and jubilation and relief. “Levi…” she choked, and then he was pulling her to him, drawing her down onto his lap and wiping away the tears that had started to spill down her cheeks.

She settled against him like a bird to its nest, wrapping her limbs around him and nestling her head in the crook of his neck, closing her eyes and fighting back another wave of emotion as she felt his strong arms encircle her.

They stayed like that for a lingering moment, both of them shaking, Levi whispering apologies against her hair like a sweet, echoing lullaby. "I'm sorry, Mikasa," he murmured ceaselessly. "I'm sorry." 

She leaned back and cupped his face in her hands, brushing her thumbs across his cheeks. “It's okay, Levi." She stayed there, holding his gaze even though she wanted nothing more than to collapse back into his embrace, because there was something else she had to say and she needed to get the words out while his defenses were down and he could do nothing except hear them. She took a deep breath. "There’s something else I need to tell you."

He swallowed, nodded.

“You told me once that we are survivors, and I believe you. We _are_ survivors. And yet we could still die—on the next expedition, five expeditions from now, ten. Life isn’t certain.” She paused, thumb gliding over his bottom lip as her eyes traced it. When her gaze flickered up again, it was hot, burning with fervor beneath her long lashes. “But there is one thing that is certain, Levi, one thing that I want you to hold on to.” Her lips trembled as everything around them slowed to a stop. “I love you,” she whispered. She brushed his bangs away from his eyes, tenderly sweeping them aside. “I love you, Levi,” she said again, voice soft yet sure. “Today, tomorrow…as long as I’m here.”

Levi stared at her in awestruck silence, jaw slack and mouth slightly open. He was so quiet that Mikasa couldn’t even hear the faint sound of his inhales and exhales.

“Are you okay?” She asked tentatively.

He pulled her closer, pressing their foreheads together. “Better than.” The words caught in his throat. “I thought...I thought it would kill me to hear you say those words, Mikasa. Ever since Stohess. But now..." His voice was husky with emotion. "Fuck, Mikasa. All this time, I’ve been pushing you away, giving you every reason to leave…” He shuddered. "I can't believe that you're still here, that you'd still _want_ to say those words."

“You’re right. You _have_ given me every reason to leave.” Mikasa settled more fully against him, making her point. “But you should know by now, Heichou, that I am not one to give up easily.” She smiled faintly. “Especially when I realize that sometimes a short man just needs a very big push to get over himself.”

To her complete astonishment, Levi chuckled quietly, something lightening in the atmosphere of their embrace. “Point well made, Ackerman,” he said, and then he kissed her.

Mikasa hadn’t gone there with the intention of doing anything more than saying what she’d needed to say, but the second his lips touched hers, her priorities changed completely.

She made a small sound and closed her eyes, slanting her mouth over his and deepening their kiss, her fingertips pressing into the muscles of his back because her hands were still too weak to do anything else.

His own hands slid down her waist and settled on her hips, securing her in place, but after months of barely any physical contact, his gentle grip wasn’t nearly enough.

Trying to send him a hint, Mikasa shifted over him, teasing him with a lazy press of her hips as she bit down on his bottom lip.

He responded as she’d hoped, gripping her more tightly, the low growl he emitted sending shivers to every unsatisfied part of her body. The wetness it evoked between her legs had her grinding her hips against his in needy motions instead of teasing ones while one of Levi's hands found its way to her hair. He let his fingers sift through the silky strands for a while as they kissed, but as their passion started to grow he gave them a decisive yank, causing her mouth to open reflexively and allowing him to drink more deeply from her parted lips.

There were too many layers between them, she decided, the confines of her clothing an unwanted impediment. Mouths still fused together, she worked clumsily at the buttons of her white, military-issue shirt, desperate to release her skin from the straining cotton.

But just as she unfastened the button above her breasts, Levi caught her wrists, halting her. He broke their kiss, his lips dragging over her chin as he pulled away. “Mikasa.” His eyes were cloudy with a mix of desire and reservation. “You’re still injured,” he reasoned, voice thick with reluctance. “You haven’t even gotten all of your stitches out yet. And your hands…don’t think I haven’t noticed. They’re much worse than you let on.” He turned her hands towards him, his thumbs tracing over the layer of gauze that concealed the gashes in her palms.

She gasped, jumping involuntarily at the contact. Then she blushed. “They only hurt when you do that,” she lied.

“And when you try to grip anything with more than your fingertips," he added, frowning in disapproval. "Don't bullshit me. You winced every single time someone shook your hand tonight, and I've seen you try and hold a spoon—emphasis on _try_. I also know for a fact that Hanji told Erwin to keep you off of the duty roster for at least another week. You're far from recovered.”

Neither the fact that those things were true nor the pain in her hands was enough to deter her. It had been so arduously long since she'd felt him, touched him, and the need to be close to him was overriding everything else. "Be gentle, then," she said. She arched a sly brow. "And I'll be mindful of what I try to grip with my hands."

He groaned and kissed her again, and Mikasa could sense that she was winning him over in the desperate way his tongue sought hers.

Mikasa pulled back and nipped at him. “Is that a yes?”

He shuddered. “Stubborn _and_ a tease,” he hissed against her lips, even as his fingers picked up where hers had left off.

She shrugged her shoulders out of the shirt when he finished the buttons and then leaned forward so he could unhook her bra before casting it away. It landed on top of his dress coat, a wisp of white against the darker fabric.

Levi simply gazed at her for a long moment, his eyes tracing every inch of skin as if it was the first time he was seeing her.

Just as Mikasa was about to start squirming with nerves, Levi bent his head to her chest and pressed a kiss against the scar that had saved his life, his lips lingering there as he seemed to struggle to regain control of his emotions. And then his mouth was roving lower. When he reached the swell of her breasts, he drew one puckered nipple into his mouth, sucking on it gently at first and then a little more vigorously when Mikasa moaned, sliding his teeth along the tip in a razor-like caress. As he moved to her other breast, trailing wet kisses between them, she pressed her hips down again, harder than before—a primal, involuntary reaction, a silent plea for _more_ , and she could feel his ardent response even through the layers of clothing between them.

“ _Mikasa_ …” he exhaled.

She shivered once and then tipped his chin up, dipping down for a brief, almost chaste, kiss. “I want you,” she breathed, voice thready with need. “Now.”

He nodded, and before she realized what he was doing, he’d pushed her off of him and onto her feet and knelt down in front of her. “What are you…”

“Helping,” he murmured, his hands already working to unlace her boots.

It felt strange to stand there and let him undress her; usually it was a team effort, both of them working quickly, all their attention focused on stripping down. This time, though, Mikasa was able to watch his face as he undressed her, was able to see the way his eyes widened with each newly revealed sliver of skin, the way his lips parted when he saw the dampness seeping through her underwear, the way his shoulders tensed when he slipped the small garment down her legs and saw how much wetter she was underneath it.

He kissed her there, briefly, making her squirm, and then he was working at his own clothes, letting them pile on the floor beside his boots.

Mikasa smiled when she noticed that he didn’t pick them up, didn’t even bother folding them, and then she nudged him back, sitting him on the bed and straddling him once more.

He steadied her, hands gripping her waist as she reached down and aligned the head of his cock to her entrance. When the tip met her wetness she gasped, the overwhelming sensation halting her movements for a stuttering heartbeat. Levi's hands tightened around her waist, his pupils darkening, desire clearly burning through him. And still he bit out a gruff: "Are you sure?" 

She didn't know if he was asking about this moment or about him, but she conquered both worries with a smile and a simply spoken _"yes"_. Then, with a soft kiss to the tip of his nose, she sank onto him, her breath hitching as she slowly eased herself down until he was sheathed completely in her warm depths, the stretch of him making her bite her lip, the sensation of utter fullness making her eyes glassy with emotion.

They stayed like that for a long, protracted moment, hipbones fused together, bodies connected as deeply as they could be, foreheads resting against each other’s, neither of them moving aside from the small tremors coursing through their bodies.

“Mikasa…” He breathed her name with a lusty kind of reverence.

Whatever else he might have said tapered off into a groan as she squeezed him with her inner muscles. “Let me,” she murmured, pushing gently at his chest with her fingertips. “Lie back.”

But Levi shook his head. “No.” His lips found her neck and he sucked a small bruise to the surface of her skin. “I want to be close to you,” he said, and she nodded because she understood. She looped her arms around his neck as his hands trailed down and palmed her hips, her ass, squeezing, encouraging her to move.

She did, setting a slow, languid pace, her eyes closing as she lost herself in the sensation of Levi sliding in and out of her. She'd forgotten how much she'd missed this - missed _him_ \- but even after so much time they still fit together as perfectly as ever, every rock of their hips completely in sync. She began riding him with less restraint, making small sounds that Levi captured with his mouth in kiss after kiss. Her taut nipples dragged against his chest with every rise and fall of her body, the added sensation winding both of them up, and before long, Mikasa felt a flush spreading through her, turning her skin blotchy with desire.

“More,” Levi groaned, thrusting up harder into her and increasing their tempo.

He hit a spot inside of her that had her clenching around him and she gasped, her mouth opening involuntarily.

Levi released one of her hips to press his thumb against her bottom lip, a small grunt of appreciation emanating from his throat as she swirled her tongue around the digit. “ _Yes…Fuck,_ Mikasa, just like this,” he said as he gripped her shoulders and hips and pulled her more vigorously into his thrusts. She ran her lips, her teeth along his jaw and he groaned, one of his hands reaching between them, snaking down to where their bodies were joined.

Mikasa nearly yelped when his fingers found her clit, the added stimulation to her oversensitive nerves sending shock waves throughout her body. She chased the pleasure with wanton abandon, beginning to circle her hips faster, her thighs slipping wider on either side of his hips, allowing her to take him in just a little deeper.

She knew he was getting close, could feel him swelling inside of her, and she was right there with him, hovering on the edge.

She kissed him, desperate and hungry, her nose bumping against his as she thrust her tongue into his mouth, her teeth skinning his bottom lip as she moaned. “Le… _Levi_ …” she murmured brokenly, voice catching as he began to jerk his hips upwards more brutally, increasing the friction.

“ _Ah_ …” She bit her lip, eyebrows drawing together as her pleasure built, her nails digging into his back. She could feel beads of sweat dripping down her spine and she shivered, eyes catching his as she met him thrust for thrust. “Levi,” she choked. “I’m going to… _ah_ …I’m…”

Levi’s eyes were dark, possessive as he watched her begin to shake. “I know,” he breathed. “That’s good.” His voice was low, deep and commanding. “Come for me, Mikasa. Let me feel you.”

His words pushed her over the precipice. With a startled cry, she fell into her orgasm, hips losing all sense of rhythm, her thighs jerking and trembling about his hips as her body spasmed.

And then he was coming too, roaring deeply as her body forced his climax from him, his shaking hands twining into her hair as he pulled her down for one last, heated kiss.

They clung to each other in the aftermath, hugging each other impossibly close as their ragged breaths gradually deepened and their pulses began to slow. A quiet hush settled around them.

Mikasa buried her head in the crook of his neck, feeling sated, spent, and happy for the first time in a long time. An hour ago she’d doubted that they would ever share another intimate moment, and now here they were, together—really, truly together. She took a deep inhale, breathing him – and the moment – in.

And she smiled, a laugh bubbling up from her throat.

Levi shifted beneath her. “What on earth is so damn funny?” He demanded, looking mildly disgruntled by her apparent humor.

She gave him a devious little quirk of her lips. “You smell like disinfectant," she commented. "I don’t know how I didn’t notice that before now."

He snorted. “I was cleaning, brat.” He nodded to the stack of used supplies in the corner of the room. “Damn maids did a shitty job, so I picked up their slack while you were making nice with the Carters this afternoon. So yes, I smell like disinfectant. That's the price I pay for not wanting to sleep in a filthy room.” He buried his nose against her chest, breathing in deeply. “You, on the other hand, just smell like sex.”

Mikasa smirked and pulled herself off of him, swatting his hands away when he tried to prevent her from leaving. “Maybe we should both clean up then, Heichou?” She looked down at him, awarding him a coquettish smile that only served to fan the flames of his recovering desire.

He caught her wrist and tugged her back to him, eyes burning. "Later," he promised.

 

**

 _Much_ later, washed and rinsed and dressed and thoroughly exhausted, they lay together in bed, pressed chest to chest, Levi absentmindedly running his hands through the damp tangles of Mikasa's hair and wondering what the fuck he’d done to deserve a moment of such uncomplicated happiness. He'd been so sure that his awful breakdown in front of her three weeks ago would be the end, that she would shun him for hurting her one too many times and not being worth the pain.

But Mikasa Ackerman- even from the first time he'd met her - had never been predictable. She always managed to surprise him, to render him speechless in a way others could not. And maybe, he pondered, that was why she was in his arms right now. Because despite everything that had happened, she'd never given up on him.

He used to think that her unwavering loyalty extended to no one beyond Eren, but he'd been blind. Mikasa had been by his side for years—fighting, risking her life, helping him hold their squad together with nothing more than her dogged determination and fearsome strength, the seeds of her loyalty towards him planted long before they'd become lovers, long before they'd fallen _in_ love with each other. But he'd been too caught up in the Corps and the daily fight to stay alive and his own failings to notice.

It was high time he made up for that. He needed to prove that her loyalty was something he deserved to have, something he cherished.

_I need to do right by you, Mikasa._

And he would.

He could feel the gentle rise and fall of her chest and the faint tickle of her even breaths through his shirt, and he knew by their deepening rhythm that she wasn’t far from sleep. But he couldn’t let her drift off. Not yet.

He stroked her cheek. “Oi,” he murmured. “Mikasa.”

She raised her head, looking up at him with heavy eyes. “Mm?”

 _No more regrets._ “Don’t let me off the hook so easily,” he said, pressing his words into the smooth expanse of her forehead. “I heard what you said earlier tonight, Mikasa—every word. And I'll always be grateful to you for that. But I can't accept your terms. This can't be so one-sided, even though I know you're strong enough to bear even my fucked up burdens on your shoulders." He paused. "What I mean is, you—you deserve more than some shitty compromises." He searched for the right words - for _better_ words, at least - but he couldn't find them. So he just continued with the jumble of his thoughts, hoping that she would understand what he was trying to say. "I’ve never...” He swallowed. “I’ve never had more, never _been_ more, but I…I’d like to try. With you. I don’t know what I can offer you, or what we could be if all this fighting ever comes to an end, but I know I want you with me. If…"He stopped himself. " _When_ the time comes, we could figure it out together.” He pulled back and searched her eyes, his brow creasing. “Is that enough for you?” He asked, not knowing how it ever could be.

But Mikasa reached up and cupped his cheek, her onyx eyes like dark, deep pools of emotion as they found his steel ones. “Yes, Levi,” she answered, voice unwaveringly steady. “It is.”

He let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding and drew her closer, curling his arms around her and pressing his head into her hair, inhaling her familiar, calming scent of pine.

“And Mikasa...” He whispered.

“Yes?”

“I love you too.”

She froze for one interminable heartbeat, her body stiffening against his as he heard the soft catch of her breath, and then she relaxed into him, burying her face in his chest with a soft sob. Levi placed a tender kiss on the crown of her head and tightened his arms around her, fusing her to him. _Home_ , he thought, and although the word came and went, the feeling remained, and it filled Levi with something he had not experienced in a long, long time.

Hope.

He closed his eyes, lulled out of consciousness by the reassuring presence of Mikasa in his arms, and for the first time since long before he could remember, Levi slept until morning.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...And that, dear peeps, _c'est tout._
> 
>  
> 
> A few things: 
> 
> 1\. If you've stuck with this story until the bitter end, bless your dear heart!!! Seriously, thank you for taking the time to read this. I really hope you enjoyed it!  
> 2\. Thank you for the kudos & comments throughout! If you haven't commented already (or even if you have!) please drop a note and let me know what you thought! I'd love to hear about what you liked, what you didn't, if you had a favorite part, if you'd like to see more stories set in this universe (at some point), if you were put off by my excessive use of the word fuck...(yes, I know I curse too much). Seriously, though, all is welcome. I kinda maybe invested a decent chunk of time putting this together, so yeah...TALK TO ME YOU GUYS. It would mean the world to me.  
> 3\. Now that this is done, I'll be (hopefully) updating TWP with some regularity, so be on the lookout for that. I've been outlining and planning, and I can already tell you that if you thought there was a lot of angst in FCiB, well... what I've sketched out so far for TWP makes FCiB look like a rom-com. SERIOUSLY YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MUCH HEARTACHE I'VE GOT PLANNED FOR THAT LIL' BABY. (Okay, so that maybe wasn't the best promotion ever, but there ya have it.)
> 
>  
> 
> A few more things (tl;dr):
> 
> I thought I’d share some little tidbits about FCiB even though it’s likely that no one other than me will find them interesting. But, on the off chance that you _are_ interested, well, here ya go:
> 
> 1\. I originally planned to end the story at “Transient” (Ch. 7). If I’d gone that route, Mikasa would have died saving Levi. Instead, I started constructing a 'part 2', if you will, and yeah, the rest is history :)  
> 2\. With the exception of the first chapter and the epilogue, none of the chapter scenes were written in the order that they appear. Apparently my brain doesn’t work chronologically.  
> 3\. The first chapter was a one-shot I found in a folder of random shit on my computer. (I have so many unpublished, drafted one-shots of this pairing and other SnK stuff that it’s a bit embarrassing...) Anyway, it was already titled FCiB, and I just ran with that when I decided to turn it into a multi-chapter work.  
> 4\. Ever notice how I mention Hanji without ever having Hanji present? Yeah, that was intentional—it kind of became my own little inside joke, like _how many times can I talk about her without giving her any actual screen time?_ Started around Ch. 5 and persisted for no other reason than the fact that I’m dumb and stupid things like that amuse me.  
>  5\. Jean and Armin are conspicuously absent, I know, and for more or less the same reason: I've been unable to develop decent voices for them. I love them both - especially Armin, the little bugger - but I'm not sure I can do either of them justice. I realize that's not a very adequate excuse, but I'm _very_ self-conscious, and writing poorly portrayed characters would have caused me a lot of stress. (But I'm trying, guys, really! Both of them will appear in TWP)  
>  6\. All of my OCs have pretty detailed backstories, but none more so than Serena. I was disappointed that ACWNR didn’t start farther back, so I kind of created my own backstory for Levi, which spans from his childhood all the way up to where ACWNR starts. Serena is part of that, and I liked her character enough to really flesh out an entire history for her—it’s very involved and pretty dramatic. I wanted to include more about her and Levi in FCiB, but it didn’t really fit, so alas, I had to leave it out.  
> 7\. I purposely left a lot of questions unanswered. I have enough material (written and in my head) to fill 2—3 more chapters, all revolving around what happens next in the FCiB universe (as well as some more long-term ideas that I may or may not revisit at some point). However, I wanted to leave things a little open-ended so readers could imagine what they like. If you’re _dying_ to know what I see happening, message me on ff.net and I’ll give you an answer. Fair warning, though: my imagination rarely spins out all-around happy endings (shocker). Ask at your own risk!  
>  8\. I tried to be thorough and detailed about all aspects of this story, but there was one detail I just couldn’t for the life of me figure out: the Olympian sigil. It gets mentioned/ alluded to a few times, and I know I should probably have described what it looked like, but I couldn’t come up with anything that I liked. ☹ Serious mind block. So it was either leave it out or use the bloody Bat symbol, and yeah…that just doesn’t quite fit.  
> 9\. This is the second longest story I’ve ever written, and the longest story I’ve ever shared with anyone.
> 
>  
> 
> Seven _hells,_ that was long-winded. I'll shut up now.
> 
>  
> 
> I LOVE YOU GOODBYE


End file.
